Harry Potter: An Ancient's Journey By keiranhalcyon2010
by phoenixstave
Summary: Chapters 1-44 of keiranhalcyon's story to save gitar002 the effort of plagiarising the rest. As complete as it may ever be.
1. Chapter 1

**Ｉ****ｄｏ****ｎｏｔ****ｏｗｎ****Ｈａｒｒｙ****Ｐｏｔｔｅｒ****ｎｏｒ****Ｓｔａｒｇａｔｅ。****ＨＰ****ｂｅｌｏｎｇｓ****ｔｏ****ＪＫＲ。****Ｓｔａｒｇａｔｅ****ｂｅｌｏｎｇｓ****ｔｏ。。。ｙｏｕ****ｋｎｏｗ****ｗｈｏ****ｙｏｕ****ａｒｅ。****Ｔｈｅｒｅ****ａｒｅ****ｓｏｍｅ****ｄｉｒｅｃｔ****ｅｘｃｅｒｐｔｓ****ｆｒｏｍ****ｔｈｅ****ｂｏｏｋ，****ｂｕｔ****ｏｎｌｙ****ｔｈｅ****ｌｅｔｔｅｒｓ****ａｎｄ****ａ****ｌｉｎｅ****ｈｅｒｅ****ｏｒ****ｔｈｅｒｅ。****Credit for using Dungeons and Dragons with Harry Potter goes to DragonBard****。**

**Chapter One – The Fantasy Emporium**

_Nine years_.

To some it might seem like a long time. To others that amount of time might just pass in a blink of an eye. But to a resident of Number Four, Privet Drive in a town called Little Whinging, in the county area of Surrey; nine years was the amount of time he'd been living with his Aunt and Uncle. This resident was currently awake and staring out of his second floor bedroom window and was seemingly in a rather pensive mood. The resident was a boy seemingly in the very early stages of his adolescence; his shoulders was just beginning to grow wider, and it was just the previous year that he had discovered a new lump on his throat, which the library books had called his 'Adam's Apple', he had messy black hair that was trimmed on occasion but was allowed to grow long at the back till it reached his lower neck, dazzling emerald green eyes shone out of his thin face, and he had an overall slender appearance, and though you could not see it now, (due to the fact that he was curled up on the bare desk pushed in front of the window sill) he stood at a respectable five foot one inch. But the most peculiar thing about our resident teenager was a scar in the form of a lightning bolt that loomed out of his forehead, just over his left eye.

Harry James Potter did not know how he got that scar.

If he was to believe his Aunt Petunia Dursley and Uncle Vernon Dursley then he had gotten it from the car crash that had claimed the lives of both his parents, Lily and James Potter. Harry had initially been skeptical of this claim; he could not see how the sudden deceleration of car and subsequent injuries and death could cause a scar in that shape and not leave any other sort of mark. So a visit to the local library and the school library later, and Harry knew that his Aunt and Uncle were lying through their teeth.

But then his Aunt and Uncle were practiced liars, it was of course the only way they could maintain that Harry was just a normal boy with a penchant for dark clothing. Uncle Vernon was the director of a firm called Grunnings, which made drills. He was a big, beefy man with hardly any neck, although he did have a very large moustache. Aunt Petunia was thin and blonde and had nearly twice the usual amount of neck, which came in very useful as she spent so much of her time craning over garden fences, spying on the neighbors. The Dursleys also had a son called Dudley and in their opinion there was no finer boy anywhere, and Harry stood next to him like night against day. This was due to the fact that Dudley had blonde hair and seemed a miniature version of his father.

The sun was just beginning to creep over the horizon, and it caused the dew that had accumulated during the night to emit yellow shining sparkles from each of the perfectly manicured lawns, in front of each of the perfectly identical houses. Already one could hear the cars beginning to rumble in the distance as those who had to get to work early drove through the town.

Harry swiveled on the desk he was sitting on, and flung himself nimbly and landed with his feet on the floor and stretched luxuriantly, deciding it was time to get ready for the day. He surveyed his room quickly to check that there was no mess about it. It would not do to give his Aunt impetus to decide that he needed to go back to his 'other' bedroom, because he could not keep this one in a perfectly normal shape. This 'other' bedroom was the cupboard under the stairs, and it had been his until he figured out a way to blackmail his Aunt and Uncle into giving him Dudley's second bedroom (which was actually just used for storing his broken toys). He had been seven years old at the time and all it had taken was nicking a fifty pound note and the small Instamatic camera off one of the substitute teachers at the local Primary he and Dudley attended. Harry had photographed his own body after one of Dudley's beatings after school and of course the cupboard under the stairs itself; hiding a set of copies in the tool shed, he had then threatened his Aunt and Uncle to either show them to a teacher or even better…mail it to the Surrey Advertiser newspaper; effectively ruining the perfect reputation the Dursley's tried to maintain.

He walked over to his dresser and pulled out a black sleeveless shirt with a cool looking dragon on the front and black jeans and headed out of his room to the upstairs bathroom. In the shower, Harry again observed the changes he had begun notice in his body, the most surprising of which was the hair that was slowly beginning to grow between his legs. He experienced a weird thrill of satisfaction at that moment…

_I'm beginning to become a man._

After toweling off and getting dressed, he headed back into his room to put on his thick-soled black leather boots (which were a gift from a good friend) and headed down the stairs. Harry's feet thudded satisfyingly on the carpeted stairs, and another thrill of satisfaction passed through him…_it's as if I'm above that horrible part in my life and stepping on it like dirt,_ he thought.

Harry walked into the kitchen on the right, and on the table top he found all the ingredients for the breakfast. Aunt Petunia always set them out in the evening just before bed, so that he could just come down the stairs and start cooking. It was one of the compromises that Harry had agreed to when the Dursley's asked him to do chores after he had blackmailed them; before then he'd been a virtual slave to them; he would do breakfast and the evening meal, and make sure the front lawn was in good shape, and that was it.

Today, Harry was whipping up some French toast, served with bacon, and a side of a fruit salad. He'd come to enjoy preparing food…it was oddly relaxing. He was now idly mumbling a rock song as he put out single portions onto his own plate and quickly devoured the meal, and downing a glass of orange juice. He quickly washed the cutlery that he had used and then organized the breakfast setting in that perfect manner that his Aunt wanted.

_Honestly, if the Dursely's were any more normal…they'd be abnormal_, he thought sarcastically.

Harry glanced at his digital watch on his wrist.

"Shit! I'm going to be late," he mumbled. He rushed out of the kitchen and grabbed a single key from the key rack pinned on the wall and hurried out of the front door, locking it behind him.

_It's going to be a sunny Saturday,_ he thought, as he walked down Privet Drive at a brisk pace.

It took fifteen minutes of walking to reach Little Whinging's only shopping mall.

"Hey the', Harry," greeted the private security guard in his green uniform from his little podium next to the main entrance of the mall.

"Hey, Eric," said Harry kindly. "Everything well?"

"Yeah, nuttin's wrong, tha'll bother ye," smiled Eric, he reached his hand out of sight on his little podium and the electric doors opened. The mall would not officially open for another hour. "In ya go."

"Thanks," waved Harry and headed into the mall. He was quite relieved that someone had decided to switch the air-conditioners on a little earlier than normal, as he wiped some sweat off his brow. He walked in the silent corridor with bright window displays from various shops around him. There was the clothing store where most of his clothes came from…there was a pet shop…a health shop…a pharmacy…and on the list went. And finally, he arrived at his destination…

A bright red flashing neon sign marked the shop called 'THE FANTASY EMPORIUM' In the window display was all sorts of posters featuring dragons, tall and busty she-elfs, roguish looking dwarfs, dashing knights in shining armor…all were renderings done from the Dungeons and Dragons role-playing phenomenon. But this was not the only thing that the shop sold…also in the display were the latest computer games, and most prominent among these was a large display, advertising 'DOOM'; a game which Harry loved playing as he imagined each demon wearing a Dudley face, as he happily blasted away with a shotgun.

The doors of this shop were already open and Harry hurried into it.

"Harry! There you are, you're almost late, and we've got a ton of stuff that needs unpacking."

The owner of this voice, who was incidentally also the owner of the shop itself, was standing behind the till counter near the door of the shop. He was a young man in his late twenties, with a tall strong build. He had slick black hair like Harry's own, but it was dyed to this color. The young man was wearing a black long sleeved shirt and black pants and both his ears were pierced with studs.

"Sorry, Daniel, lost track of time while I was cooking," replied Harry.

"Hummphh," snorted Daniel, "what will the Dursley's do when you leave them behind I wonder…starve?" He asked with a scathing grin.

"I suppose," shrugged Harry.

"I don't see why you just drop the cooking altogether Harry," said Daniel, "you've got them on a leash, they can't do a thing to you if you say no."

"I like it," said Harry nonchalantly. "And using the blackmail to get myself out of the house will not work. I'm not going to an Orphanage."

"Well, it still seems like the lesser of two evils," said Daniel with a frown. "Those relatives of yours must be made to pay for what they did to you." Harry had, of course, shared his home life with Daniel… as it was the only way to get him to be sympathetic and allow him to work in the shop, despite the fact that it was technically illegal for Daniel to employ Harry. As a result there was no mention of Harry in the books, and Daniel did not pay Harry in money, but rather in possessions…the clothes Harry wore, the watch, the good school books, and the contact lenses for Harry's short sightedness and so on. Daniel had also taught Harry a great deal.

Sometimes he would pick a Fantasy novel from the shelf in the shop and told Harry to read it and then Daniel would ask pointed questions about the morals and choices the characters had in the book. The most common question was: What would you do Harry, if you were in that situation? And why? It sometimes made Harry think that Daniel had studied philosophy at whatever Uni he had gone to, but he never elaborated much on his past.

Daniel had also had enough of Harry being late when Dudley and his gang of friends practiced their favorite sport during weekends: Harry-Hunting. (The blackmail only worked on his Aunt and Uncle, as they were the only ones to comprehend the threat of it.) So, Daniel had emptied one of the packing rooms in his shop and padded the concrete floor with a white dojo mat, and taught Harry the basics of defending oneself, Daniel was an Aikido adept (roughly translated it means: Way of Peace). It was a Japanese martial art that used the momentum and weight of your opponent against them; as such it was a favored art amongst small people and women. He also showed Harry how to hit in way so that even a fully grown man would take note and double over in pain. It amazed Harry that it was simply a matter of technique to achieve the power to properly hit someone with a hand.

"They will pay," said Harry grinning. "But not now, what proverb was it that you taught me…'All good things…ummm…'

"…come to those who wait," finished Daniel. "Yes, but don't forget about it. Now off with you…we've received new shipment of DOOM that I want you to unpack, the game is flying off the shelves."

"Sure," said Harry and walked off into the back of the shop, where no customers were allowed.

It was a rather uneventful day after that. Harry merely unpacked the boxes that 'DOOM' came shipped in and entered the bar codes into the shop computer system and placed them in the ready pile, from which Daniel could simply come and collect them. Daniel had also taught Harry how to do inventory, which took the most time to do. When that was done, Harry would always go into the small dojo room and practice his falls, rolls, and katas, and would also work lightly on one of the punching bags hanging from the ceiling. It was just before lunch, as Harry finished a kata and rolled to avoid an imaginary opponent that a clapping startled him.

Standing in the doorway was a tall teenage girl. She had long blonde hair that reached past her shoulders and hazel eyes framed with a soft heart-shaped face. She was wearing a white string top that exposed her nicely tanned shoulders and arms; it also gave Harry a good idea of the small bosom that lurked beneath, and jeans that hugged her hips that would, in a few years, be rounding into womanhood. Harry knew her age to be slightly older than he was, by a few months, but that didn't faze him.

"Hey Har," she greeted cheerfully. Harry realized abruptly that he was staring at her in a daze and blushing; due to the fact that he had taken off his shirt to stop it from getting all sticky and sweaty.

"Hi Amanda," he said, trying to be nonchalant and reached for his shirt to put it on.

"Aaaah," replied Amanda in disappointment, mock pouting. Harry showed her his middle finger but the grin on his face showed it was a teasing gesture.

"So…what's up?" asked Harry rubbing a towel over his face and through his hair, making it even messier than usual.

"Oh, I'd just thought I'd ask my on and off boyfriend to lunch," she grinned at Harry. Said Harry merely raised an eyebrow at her in consternation.

"So that's what I am now," said Harry in mock wonder. "An on and off boyfriend."

"What do you expect Harry…you're turning eleven in nine months and I'm nearly eleven, we're still spring chickens," said Amanda exasperated.

"I know…it's just that…I dunno, maybe I've read one too many romantic fantasy novel, I just didn't know what to expect when I asked you out," he huffed in annoyance. "But, oh well, let's go then." He threw the towel onto a nearby chair and he gestured with his hand, "Ladies first."

Amanda grinned and walked out, Harry following in her wake. He made his excuses to Daniel for lunch who gave him an exaggerated knowing wink. Soon Harry and Amanda were walking hand in hand in the mall towards a nice pizza restaurant on the far side of the mall. Halfway there Harry was distracted by Amanda sniffing the air around him.

"Do I stink?" asked Harry amused at her antics.

"Amazingly enough, no," said Amanda frowning. "In fact you smell normal, as if you'd not worked out at all." Harry shrugged it off. It was something he could not explain per se; perhaps he just did not have the propensity to smell awful after training like that, unlike most other people. In fact, Harry could recall many incidents during his as yet short life that was unlike what most other people experienced that could only be explained in terms of the very fantasy books that _The Fantasy Emporium_ sold. One memorable incident occurred in only his second year of elementary school. He'd got into terrible trouble for being found on the roof of the school kitchens. Dudley's gang had been chasing him as usual when, as much to Harry's surprise as anyone else's, there he was sitting on the chimney. The Dursleys had received a very angry letter from Harry's headmistress telling them Harry had been climbing school buildings. But all he'd tried to do (as he shouted at Uncle Vernon through the locked door of his cupboard) was jump behind the big bins outside the kitchen doors.

Harry replayed those events again and again in his mind over the years and could only conclude that he'd somehow Teleported (he only had the Dungeons role-playing game as a frame of reference). This opened a huge can of worms in his head. Was magic real then? Was the ancient myths and legends that all these fantasy stories were based on, sprung from some sort of fact?

Another incident occurred when Aunt Petunia, tired of Harry coming back from the barber's looking as though he hadn't been at all, had taken a pair of kitchen scissors and cut his hair so short he was almost bald except for his fringe, which she left 'to hide that horrible scar'. Dudley had laughed himself silly at Harry, who spent a sleepless night imagining school the next day. Next morning, however, he had got up to find his hair exactly as it had been before Aunt Petunia had sheared it off.

Again, he could only relate this to the fantasy novels, where people had the power of altering their appearance at will.

Another time, Aunt Petunia had been trying to force him into a revolting old jumper of Dudley's (brown with orange bobbles; which was the final straw for him, he'd gone and stolen the teacher's camera the next day). The harder she tried to pull it over his head, the smaller it seemed to become, until finally it might have fitted a glove puppet, but certainly wouldn't fit Harry.

There was also a time just last year when Harry was doing the garden and a small brown house snake slithered through his Aunt's roses and Harry could distinctly hear a hissing muttering. "Bloody lawnmowerssss." He put this down to his own imagination at first, but the following day Harry saw the same snake passing through the roses again and thinking he was losing his mind, said, "Hello there." And to his utter surprise the snake stopped and slithered back to him and raised its little head into the air.

"Did you ssspeak to me?" asked the snake in what seemed like an amazed voice.

"Yeah," answered Harry. And before he knew it he was having a full blown conversation with the small snake.

This brought a startling realization to Harry in time. It was as if logic and something as illogical as magic just clicked in his mind. And if there was one common theme to the fantasy magic written by various authors it was about _belief_. You don't think you could do something, you _knew_ you could do it.

"I'll have a Hawaii pizza and a coke…" said Harry to the patient waiter.

"…and I'll have the Regina and a coke as well," said Amanda, the waiter ticked off the selection on his writing pad and off he went.

"So how's your family?"

"Well, my mother can't wait for her pregnancy to be over, she misses her work," said Amanda, her mother worked as a Public Relations Manager of the British branch of BMW. "And father is off doing whatever he does for that Exporting Company in London." Harry had met Amanda's father only once as he came home from work and he looked as if he'd been put through the wringer. He had glanced at Harry vaguely and mumbled a hello before stomping up the stairs of their home to presumably fall asleep, even though it'd been midday.

Soon they were tucking into their pizzas and fell into an easy conversation. Discussing things like school, teachers, things that had been happening in the news, like the American ultimatum to Iraq to withdraw from Kuwait, the possibility of a war, in which the United Kingdom would surely participate. Amanda liked to discuss intellectual things of the like and she was just as much a visitor to the library as Harry was. It was one of reasons he liked her. She might be blonde, and there were girls at school that was much prettier than her, but she had a brain on her shoulders to match Harry's own and in some aspects even surpass him.

But like all good things, it had to eventually end, as such the lunch break was over and Amanda led him back to The Fantasy Emporium and back into the dojo room.

"We definitely need to grab a movie or something when you're not working," said Amanda uncertainly.

"Yes," said Harry, not seeing her brightening the instant he said it. "It'll take some doing." Harry was thinking of the problems involved, his Aunt and Uncle of course being the biggest. He was surprised though as he was abruptly hugged.

"I'll look forward it," said Amanda excitedly.

"Why the excitement?" he asked her with an amused smile returning the hug.

"Because, you dolt," said Amanda with a sigh, "it's just I was nervous you would say no. I've been worried our friendship might suffer because of the dating thing…"

"Hey, no matter what we will always be friends," stated Harry confidently.

"Oh!" said Amanda wiping a tear from her eye. And before Harry could do anything, he felt her lips on his. At first it was just a peck, but something in her eyes told Harry to kiss back, and he was doubly surprised when he felt her mouth open partially and so it was that Harry experienced his first French kiss.

He had a bit of a dopey expression on his face afterwards that Amanda giggled at, which allowed him to recover his composure.

"Bye," she grinned and ran out.

"Bye," he said absentmindedly, feeling his lips in memory.

The following day Harry was back at The Fantasy Emporium and due to it being a Sunday it was a rather slow business day. Sometimes Harry thought that Daniel opened the store on a Sunday just so he could stay there and not go back to Privet Drive during the day. Harry closed the door to the dojo room and took a deep breath, placing his hands on the door. Reaching for any memory that would send strong emotion flowing through him; he had years of anger related memories and soon enough he felt the whirlwind of anger sing through his veins at the Dursleys.

"Lock!" said Harry sharply, the door glowed briefly underneath his hands. Harry grinned in triumph. This door had no lock but as Harry tried to turn the knob to open it again…it would not budge.

"Unlock!" snapped Harry again, and he had to jump out of the way as the door swing violently on its hinges and slammed open. "Oops," grinned Harry chuckling. He closed the door again and repeated the procedure…locking it with his power. He then rubbed his hands to practice his next trick. This time it would need a lot more anger…so for almost ten seconds, but what seemed like much longer, Harry worked himself into a frenzy…he flung out both his hands towards the punching bag and _pushed_…he saw light began to bend as a wedge of power shot out of his hands and hit the punching bag so hard that it almost completed a full pendulum movement.

Harry leaned on his knees breathing hard. It felt as if he'd just run the hundred meter sprint. But it was much better already than it had been in the beginning. The first time he had _pushed_ using his power he had fallen flat on his back afterward and passed out. He straightened with a groan reached out absentmindedly for his water bottle, not realizing it was actually a few meters away on the small chair…if he had been looking he would have seen the bottle soar through the air directly into his hand, as if it had been lassoed with an invisible string. Harry drunk the water and put it down next to him.

He rested for about fifteen minutes, getting his mind and body back to equilibrium.

Harry now walked to one corner of the room and would now practice his other trick. He stared at the opposite corner of the room, and let the emotions of that fateful day come back to him, the panic, desperation, the wish, to just get away…he stared at the opposite corner of the room nearly seven meters away and jumped slightly forward…a brief squeezing feeling overcame Harry…and next he felt pain as his nose bumped painfully into that same opposite corner of the room. He had only ever done the Teleport trick in the dojo room as he could not figure a way to safely practice longer distances…it would be a trifle hard to explain to anyone how a teenager could have suddenly appeared out of nowhere…

He continued practicing his Teleportation for ten minutes, and he reached a milestone that made him grin in triumph, he could now Teleport from a perfect standing start, in the past he had to do some physical movement to prompt his mind to shape his power to achieve the desired effect, no more though.

Harry decided to rest for a while. But he did not spend it idly. His brow creased in concentration and he snapped his fingers…and with a muffled _pop_, a thick glossy book entitled 'Dungeons and Dragons' and a thick A4 file binder appeared on the floor in front of him. The file binder was filled with hand written pages in Harry's messy scrawl. Harry affectionately called it his very own 'Book of Shadows'. It was filled with spells, invocations and incantations that he had been successful in accomplishing.

It sometimes made him wonder what the limits were to what he could do with his power…but as Daniel would say the only limits that one truly has is the ones we ourselves put there…and our imagination.

Time passed. Days turned to weeks, which turned to months. War broke out in the Persian Gulf. Harry watched with rather detached fascination on the television newscast as gun camera or missile camera footage was released by the Americans, showing how a smart bomb zoomed into its target with lethal finality and abruptly the picture would fade into static as the missile hit its target…in this case an Iraqi munitions factory. Everything had an almost surreal, almost video game feel to it, and Harry had to remind himself that every time when static blossomed on the TV screen, lives had been snuffed out.

For over two months at school, there was little else talk amongst the eldest children but the war. There were even a few whose elder brother, father, and even mother were fighting in Iraq. Such children found themselves rather reluctant celebrities, and they did not like it.

Soon though, the Persian Gulf War ended. It had taken a mere two months for Allied and Coalition forces to achieve victory. And when the Prime Minister addressed the United Kingdom on television announcing the war's end, Harry heard Uncle Vernon lambaste about it scathingly. Harry ignored his Uncle and got up from the sofa in the living room and walked back up into his room to get ready for bed.

The Gulf War had been quite a short thing as wars go, only a mere two months. World War 2 had lasted seven years and for countries like Japan and China it had went on for fourteen years. Then again, the Gulf War was about the fate of only one country and the oil wells it had, so there was no real basis for comparison, not to mention the new methods of warfare and technology.

Harry had dressed in his pajamas, when he heard his Uncle stomp past the room and enter the main bedroom and slam it hard, as he usually did when in a foul temper. Harry shrugged it off and got into bed and a gaping maw of silence descended on the house.

An hour passed and for some odd reason Harry could still not find sleep. He puffed up his pillow in frustration and turned to lie on his side. It was then that he heard an odd muttering. After a few moments listening he could only conclude that his Aunt and Uncle were speaking quite loudly, maybe even an argument. The numerous walls were muffling the sound, but it was strong enough to carry all the way to Harry's room.

Harry got out of bed slowly and grabbed the glass of water on his bedside table and quickly gulped it down. Empty glass in hand he stealthily walked out of his room, he did this by walking on the balls of his feet…as Daniel had taught him in martial arts…_its best to avoid a fight altogether if possible, as such, you must be quiet when walking_. As quiet as a ghost Harry passed the door to Dudley's room and went further down the hall to the last door, the master bedroom.

Harry walked past that door to the end of the hall…it would not do to turn his back on Dudley's room…and faced forward. He carefully placed the mouth of the empty glass against the wall and pushed his ear against the closed end. The arguing voices of Vernon and Petunia became intelligible, but it still had a weird hollow distortion to it.

"…I can't believe you still have that letter, should've burned it years ago," came a deep voice, which must be Vernon's.

"He's reaching the age when Lily got her letter," said Petunia, it was hard to distinguish the tone of the voice with the distortion. But Harry's heart started thumping in excitement when she mentioned 'Lily' – it was the name of his mother. Was he finally going to get some true answers about his parents and not lies? "It's only a matter of time." What letters were they talking about?

"We swore Petunia, that we'd put a stop to all that freaky nonsense," said Vernon. "That I'd beat it out of him…"

"That won't work Vernon," said Petunia. "I've told you a hundred times…it won't work. The freakishness is as much a part of him as his own body is." Harry heard Vernon snorting derisively.

"Then we'll just have to intercept the letter they send so that it won't reach him," said Vernon.

"Perhaps," was all Petunia said, "it might work. But I think that if they don't get a reply they will send someone personally to deliver it. Lily's letter was hand delivered by one of _them_."

"Then if things go that far…we'll just leave with him, they're bound to give up eventually; the boy is hardly worth the effort."

Harry had to pull away from the glass at that point and walk carefully down the hall and back into his room; his anger had stirred at Vernon's remark and Harry had felt his power responding to it rather alarmingly…it was almost as if a great hand had been stretching from him and was groping to throttle Vernon, it seemed it hardly mattered that there was a wall between him and Harry.

Harry breathed in deeply…in and out…in and out…as he engaged in a meditation exercise Daniel had taught him…anything to just calm down.

It took Harry a long time to fall asleep…but he was sure of one thing…whoever would be sending him a letter…he would make sure that he was away from Privet Drive to receive it.

Now with his new resolve in mind, Harry had set his alarm to wake him an hour earlier. As a result it was still dark every time he woke and prepared breakfast for the Dursley's. Then without fail he would leave the house to walk to a clump of bushes down the street near number ten Privet Drive and hide to observe any coming and goings, especially those of the postman, who without fail delivered every morning at breakfast. It took about a week to memorize the route that the elderly postman walked and eventually Harry began to casually say hello each day…then eventually had short conversations with the man…it moved onto long conversations…then one day Harry sneaked in a mention that he wouldn't mind taking the post for Number 4 Privet Drive each day and deliver it for the elderly postman. The postman was quite thankful for the company as he was widower and his was a terribly lonely profession, so he saw no reason to not hand over the post of Number four to Harry.

Harry of course, felt a little guilty preying on the man's loneliness to wheedle the post out of him…but he resolved to keep conversing with the old postman…whose name was Ted…for as long afterwards as needed.

Eventually, the summer holidays had started and Harry's efforts finally paid dividends. The Dursley's had gone to London the previous day to get Dudley's new school uniform for the same school Vernon had attended…Smeltings Comprehensive. And no doubt Aunt Petunia would want Dudley to model it…that was sure to provide a few laughs. I met Ted on Magnolia Crescent and he absentmindedly handed me the post as we talked about his favorite topic…World War 2, Ted had been a belly turret gunner on an American B-17 Flying Fortress and he told Harry fascinating true stories of his experiences in the war.

Harry lost all attention for his story when he saw the fateful letter he had been waiting for in his hands…

Ted was talking about the time when an anti-aircraft shell had hit a can of tomato soup near the pilot, drenching both pilot and co-pilot in what looked like blood…and both men had frantically asked each other if they were all right, nearly losing control of the plane in their distress…until Ted had calmly reached down and picked up the guilty can and showed it to both pilots who looked incredibly sheepish at how easily they were rattled.

…Harry stared at the letter, it was addressed:

_Mr H. Potter_

_The Smallest Bedroom_

_4 Privet Drive_

_Little Whinging_

_Surrey_

The envelope was thick and heavy, made of yellowish parchment, and the address was written in emerald-green ink. There was no stamp. Turning the envelope over, Harry saw a purple wax seal bearing a coat of arms; a lion, an eagle, a badger and a snake surrounding a large letter 'H'. Harry hardly spared a glance for the other two items of post: a postcard from Uncle Vernon's sister Marge, who was holidaying on the Isle of Wight, a brown envelope that looked like a bill. Ted continued his story and as they passed Number four, Harry quickly jogged up and pushed the post through the flap in the door, surreptitiously pocketing his letter and went back down to Ted and they continued on the route.

The remaining hour until Ted had to say goodbye felt like an eternity and Harry could acutely felt the weight of the letter in his pocket.

Finally, when Ted had left to go back to the Post Office, Harry ran as fast as he could to the mall and into The Fantasy Emporium, where Daniel merely raised an eyebrow at Harry's apparent hurry.

Harry closed the door to the dojo room and sat Indian style on the floor and pulled the letter out. Harry ran his hands over the parchment…he could feel the power in the letter, it was foreign to him, it didn't feel at all like his own power…but it was power nonetheless. Harry tore the ornate seal and pulled out a letter that read:

_HOGWARTS SCHOOL OF WITCHCRAFT AND WIZARDRY_

_Headmaster: Albus Dumbledore_

_(Order of Merlin, First Class, Grand Sorc., Chf. Warlock, Supreme Mugwump, International Confed. of Wizards)_

_Dear Mr Potter,_

_We are pleased to inform you that you have a place at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment._

_Term begins on 1 September. We await your owl by no later than 31 July._

_Yours sincerely,_

_Minerva McGonagall_

_Deputy Headmistress_

Questions exploded inside Harry's head like fireworks. But now at least, a few were answered.

He was a _wizard_.

There was school for people who had power like he had.

And if there was a school, it meant that there had to be society that school served; a society of wizards and…witches.

And logically…if there was a society, then that society would have to have a government as well. Was that the Queen's government? Or was there another? Harry sincerely doubted that the Queen or the Prime Minister knew…or if they knew…then it was a big secret.

But what did _We await your owl by no later than 31 July_ mean? Harry understood that they required some form of response, but that could only be done by a letter. But there was no return address on the envelope and no telephone number. Owl? Did they mean the nocturnal bird type owl?

Tap. Tap. Tap.

Harry was startled as he heard from the small window on the far side wall of the dojo room a distinct tapping…as if a man had knocked a finger against it.

Tap. Tap.

There was a dark oval figure distorted by the window and it bent down and sure enough…Tap. Tap. Tap. There was now a shrill impatient hoot that sounded like an owl. Curious, despite himself he took the nearby chair and stood on it to reach for the window and unlatched it. A tawny owl soared into the room and landed next to Harry's Hogwarts letter.

"You're kidding?" said Harry incredulously. "I'm supposed to give my reply to an owl…like a messenger pigeon."

The owl hooted indignantly and ruffled its feathers and blinked owlishly at Harry.

"I guess you can understand me?" said Harry sheepishly. An affirmative sounding hoot answered that question. "So you're a magic owl?" Another affirmative hoot. "Ah, well if you excuse me, I just need to go find a pen."

Harry walked out of the dojo and closed the door behind him. Then he pinched himself.

"Ouch!" he said. "OK, so not dreaming."

He rushed into the storeroom where he usually did inventory and grabbed a ballpoint pen and a piece of paper from the laser printer and hurried back.

"To go or not to go? That is the question," mumbled Harry to himself. "Go off to a school to be officially trained as a wizard…or stay with the Dursleys and go to Stonewall Comprehensive…wizard, definitely." And so Harry quickly scrawled a reply on the paper:

_Dear Deputy Headmistress McGonagall,_

_I would indeed love to go to your fascinating sounding school and I will be there on September 1st. Once I figure out how to get there of course, not to mention how I'm going to buy my school supplies, and with what money. But other than that…expect me there!_

_Yours sincerely,_

_Harry Potter_

Harry folded the letter as small as he could make it and held it out to the owl, the owl raised a leg and Harry noticed a letter carrier attached there, as soon as the letter was inside the owl hooted again and flew up and out of the window. He now turned his attention to the remaining parchments inside the envelope. The first thing he pulled out was his school supply list:

HOGWARTS SCHOOL OF WITCHCRAFT AND WIZARDRY

_Uniform_

_First-year students will require:_

_1. Three sets of plain work robes (black)_

_2. One plain pointed hat (black) for day wear_

_3. One pair of protective gloves (dragon hide or similar)_

_4. One winter cloak (black, silver fastenings)_

_Please note that all pupils' clothes should carry name tags_

_Set Books_

_All students should have a copy of each of the following:_

_The Standard Book of Spells (Grade 1) by Miranda Goshawk_

_A History of Magic by Bathilda Bagshot_

_Magical Theory by Adalbert Waffling_

_A Beginners' Guide to Transfiguration by Emeric Switch_

_One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi by Phyllida Spore_

_Magical Drafts and Potions by Arsenius Jigger_

_Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them by Newt Scamander_

_The Dark Forces: A Guide to Self-Protection by Quentin Trimble_

_Other Equipment_

_1 wand_

_1 cauldron (pewter, standard size 2)_

_1 set glass or crystal phials_

_1 telescope_

_1 set brass scales_

_Students may also bring an owl OR a cat OR a toad_

"Right, now where the hell am I going to get all this stuff?" said Harry aloud to himself. This was becoming more and more impossible by the minute. Harry hoped his rather unsubtle hinting towards the Deputy Headmistress would get them to send someone to help. The letter itself was extremely unhelpful and it was almost as if they assumed I would already know a lot about the comings and goings of wizards and witches. Harry's eyes darkened in anger as he recalled the overheard conversation between Vernon and Petunia…_The freakishness is as much a part of him as his own body is. _

_They knew I was a wizard all along_. _Then McGonagall must've thought I knew. But I don't. It's not as if the Dursleys would've told me nor will they pay for me to go._

Harry stood. There was only one thing left to do.

Dursley bashing.

Harry arrived home in the evening with a determined glint in his eyes. He would get the truth from his relatives…even if he had to forcefully remodel their house using his power. Harry had dressed in a menacing looking biker leather jacket he had borrowed from Daniel, the usual black jeans, boots, and sleeveless shirt (this time sporting a hollow skull picture) completed the effect.

Harry walked into the kitchen and was apparently just in time to see Dudley parading about in his new uniform. It seems Smelting boys wore maroon tailcoats, orange knickerbockers and flat straw hats called boaters. They also carried knobbly sticks..._probably to beat each other up silly with_, Harry thought derisively. As he looked at Dudley in his new knickerbockers, Uncle Vernon said gruffly that it was the proudest moment of his life. Aunt Petunia burst into tears and said she couldn't believe it was her Ickle Dudleykins, he looked so handsome and grown-up. If Harry wasn't feeling near murderously angry he would have probably found this little scene funny.

It was at this point that Dudley spotted Harry. And he felt a thrill of satisfaction to see Dudley paling.

_Guess the expression coaching Daniel gave me for this little confrontation paid off,_ thought Harry with an inward smirk.

Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon had by now also turned to see Harry. Petunia also paled but Vernon seemed to swell like a bullfrog.

"Get that expression off your face, boy!"

"I don't think I will, thanks," said Harry, glaring daggers at Vernon. "I suggest you send Dudley upstairs, unless you don't mind him hearing what I have to say."

"You can demand NOTHING! BOY!"

"I can," said Harry scathingly, "Daniel has the…evidence in his possession, if I do not return by…" Harry stared at his watch, "nine o' clock this evening. He'll send it to the police, Child Protection and the Surrey Advertiser."

The two adult Dursley's said nothing…Dudley just looked confused.

"I take that as a yes," said Harry. "Good, now I will begin by asking long overdue questions, and I will get truthful answers…or Daniel mails the evidence anyway." Harry now glared at Petunia, who now looked pale as well as furious. She nodded.

"Did you know that I was a _wizard_, all this time?"

Aunt Petunia gave a gasp of horror. Uncle Vernon turned a shade of puce. But no answer was forthcoming.

"Hello! Answer please!" said Harry pointing at his watch, reminding them that there was a deadline to this confrontation.

"Yes," said Aunt Petunia, looking like she swallowed a bug. Harry narrowed his eyes in fury.

"Well, I knew I could do stuff all along, but imagine my surprise when a letter from Hogwarts arrives for me…" A vein throbbed in Vernon's neck. "…telling me all this. Of course, I accepted to go nearly immediately, anything better than staying here." Harry relished every moment of this; it felt like he was washing his hands of this horrid place. "Now let continue with the Q shall we, times a wasting. Good. Now, next question. How did my parents really die?"

"They got themselves blown up by some or other dark freak," said Aunt Petunia derisively.

"YOU MEAN THEY WERE MURDERED AND YOU DIDN'T TELL ME!" screamed Harry feeling his emotions of anger rocket in intensity. Every single piece of fragile cutlery, picture frames and glasses in the room shattered as one. And an oppressive feeling pervaded the entire room, almost as if the gravity had been tripled.

_If only she could have at least spoken with a bit more respect_, thought the tiny part of Harry's rational mind that was unaffected by the emotion. Harry could be patient with many things…but insult his parents and woe betides you. Breathing heavily Harry stared at his so called family; Petunia seemed ready to faint and Uncle Vernon had jumped and screamed in fright, and Dudley screamed like a little girl and ran away up the stairs.

"Where is the letter!" growled Harry, as he forced all his emotions into the flame in his own mind, leaving him with some clarity of thought, as it was, the flame had already grew to the size of bonfire.

"What are you talking about?" managed Aunt Petunia weakly.

"The letter," said Harry with a snarl, "the letter that Vernon said you should have burned!"

This allowed Vernon to recover some of his previous composure.

"You were spying on us boy?" he shouted.

"Yeah, I was," said Harry, as if daring them to do anything about it. "You should learn to keep your little arguments more quiet. Now I want that letter!"

"You're too late," said Aunt Petunia meekly. "I burned it afterwards."

Harry's eyes burned overbright and he stated, "That letter was my legacy, it explained my heritage…and you kept it from me. You, who belittled me, who lied to me, who beat me, your own blood…" Harry pointed his finger at them both, "you both and Dudley will suffer for this."

Harry concentrated and clapped his hands together. With a muffled _pop_ a large bag appeared at his feet. It contained every single possession he had in the house, as all he owned in the house was his clothes and hidden Dungeons and Dragons books it was not hard to focus on summoning everything he owned. He slung the bag over his shoulder and regarded his relatives with righteous anger.

The Dursleys eyes widened at the display. If Vernon had given any thought to physically restraining Harry, those thoughts were thrown out of the window when he saw his nephew simply vanish before his eyes.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2 – Diagon Alley**

That night was the first night ever that Harry slept in _The Fantasy Emporium_. Daniel would have gladly taken Harry to his own flat, but it was rather small and was in no shape to receive Harry at all. So Daniel had come up with the idea that they would kip for the night in the dojo room with sleeping bags. It was a rather odd feeling for Harry to wake up in a place that wasn't the Dursley's stiflingly normal home. To wake up in the dojo room was rather comforting.

A glance to his left showed that Daniel was already up and his sleeping bag was rolled up and sat in the corner of the room. Harry looked at his clock and he realized was else was bugging him; Daniel had let him sleep rather late. It was nine in the morning. He got up and headed to the small toilet room to freshen up, there was also a small basin and mirror in the same room, so Harry splashed some cold water on his face to wake up properly. Harry had slept in his clothes last night and he smelled himself…the musty smell of sleep was on him, but otherwise he looked like he always did, even though his clothes was slightly rumpled.

There was a knock on the small door of the toilet room.

"Harry?" prompted Daniel's voice.

"Yes?"

"There is a…visitor here for you," said Daniel, and the tone of voice made Harry wonder. It sounded as if Daniel was rather apprehensive about the visitor or was slightly freaked out by him or her.

"Coming."

Harry opened the door and Daniel looked rather incredulous. The reason for this was rather apparent as Harry walked into the main area of the shop. There standing in one of the small aisles of the shop, was what Harry at first glance thought was a dwarf, but if he was one, he was very old. He stood at about just over four feet, and had white sparkly hair and beard that reached down to his tiny stomach. He wore rather outlandish attire, a purple waistcoat and matching trousers. He was standing on a chair (presumably given to him by Daniel) to examine the highest shelf of the rack; where the D books were, the cover of which featured a beautiful yet fearsome she-elf brandishing a curved sword.

"…such a pity," Harry heard him mutter with a squeaky voice, before he noticed me. He gave a squeak of delight and promptly toppled off the chair. Harry rushed forward to help the small old man to his feet.

"Thank you, Mr Potter, I sometimes forget myself," said the tiny man breathlessly.

"Ummm, have we met?" asked Harry uncertainly.

"Oh, sorry," squeaked the man, "my name is Filius Flitwick, but you will soon address me as Professor Flitwick."

"You're from…" Harry was about to say Hogwarts, but Flitwick cut across him looking pointedly at Daniel.

"Yes, I represent the school that sent you your acceptance letter," said Flitwick, Harry understood that Flitwick wanted the conversation to remain private. And Harry supposed it was the same reason that he had never shared the knowledge of his powers with Daniel. Harry could only imagine the consequences…it also didn't help that he had seen a first season of The X-Files…ending up in government lab having scientist prod and poke him, didn't bear thinking about.

"Daniel can Professor Flitwick and I get some privacy?" asked Harry softly. He nodded and gestured to the back. As soon as we were safely behind the door of the dojo room, Flitwick surprised Harry by producing a small ornately fashioned stick and waving it at the door; which sealed with a squelch, and bringing the small stick swishing over his own head. Harry felt his eyes widen as he felt the power around him swirling and solidifying into the walls.

"Well, now that's out of the way with, Mr Potter, as I said, my name is Professor Flitwick, Professor of Charms, at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry."

"Pleased to meet you," said Harry, bending to shake hands with Flitwick.

"I can say you've had us in a bit of tiff, Mr Potter," said Flitwick genially.

"Why?" asked Harry cautiously.

"Well, the Ministry of Magic monitored a large…_explosion_ of accidental magic at your residence last night," reported Flitwick. Harry took note of one of his suppositions confirmed; there was indeed a magical government. "Hogwarts was notified and we sent our Keeper of Grounds at Hogwarts, Rubeus Hagrid to your house to ascertain if everything was alright."

"And I wasn't there," said Harry.

"Yes, as such Hagrid returned quickly and informed us of your disappearance, whereupon I was dispatched to divine your location," said Professor Flitwick.

"How did you do that?" asked Harry curiously.

"Oh easily," said Flitwick genially, "a simple Point Me spell with your name as focus, starting from Privet Drive."

"Interesting," said Harry thoughtfully. "Are you here to help me to get my school things, sir?"

"Indeed," smiled Flitwick, "not to worry about that, I will be escorting you to London today." Flitwick waved his stick again and Harry felt the power embedded in the walls and doors dissipate.

"What do you call your foci?" asked Harry.

"Oh, this is my wand," said Flitwick holding up the small ornate wand for a brief inspection, it looked to be made of willow. Harry said his temporary goodbyes to Daniel and that he would be back later in the day.

Passers-by stared a lot at Flitwick as they walked through Little Whinging to the station. Harry couldn't blame them. It wasn't everyday you saw a small person such as Flitwick walking around. Also Flitwick seemed to find a lot of ordinary things fascinating. He pointed out a parking meter to Harry and said in a hushed whisper, "The things Muggles dream up." As it turned out, that was the word used by wizarding folk in reference to non-magical people. It seemed slightly biased to label people that way, but the honest exuberance on Flitwick's face convinced Harry that it was just the way Flitwick was raised to view non-magical people.

In the meantime, Harry was peppering Flitwick with questions about magic.

"Is there a difference in the magic that a witch performs in comparison to a wizard?"

"Not in essence," answered Flitwick, seemingly surprised at the question. "A wizard uses the exact same magic a witch does…except that perhaps due to the inherent difference between the sexes a witch will use certain spells that a wizard will never dream of using nor will ever need."

Harry gathered that to mean spells that affected a woman specifically, like cosmetic spells, perhaps even spells that would help a witch with regards to their unique…attributes. Harry couldn't help but blush at the thought.

"Why do you use a wand? Or need one?"

"Well," said Flitwick, "a wand is simply a channel or a lens for your magic. If I could use that metaphor, the majority of wizards magic are inherently unfocused, or too chaotic. It's like someone who has shortsightedness; they need glasses to see properly. In the same way, a wizard needs a wand to focus his magic properly to achieve a desired effect he needs."

"Are there a minority then who do not need it?"

"There is," confirmed Flitwick, "but even they prefer the precision a wand brings. There are of course, magical arts which require no wand waving."

They had reached the station. There was a train to London in five minutes' time. Professor Flitwick, who didn't understand 'Muggle money', as he called it, gave the notes to Harry so he could buy their tickets. People stared more than ever on the train. Flitwick sat like a small child on the seats.

"Professor, am I going to have to apply for Public Relief to buy my school things?" asked Harry, it was odd to be looking down on someone that was clearly way older than Harry.

"Dear heavens, no," said Flitwick earnestly, "your parents did not leave you with nothing. There'll be a special bank where we are headed, it's where they left you more than enough money to see you through your schooling years." This surprised Harry, of course. He thought it would be nice to be able to afford things for himself.

"Professor Flitwick," said Harry, a thought occurred to him. "Who was the dark _wizard_ that killed my parents?" Flitwick let out another squeak…this time of fright…and toppled off the seat. Harry sighed and helped him up.

"You mean you don't know!" squeaked Professor Flitwick, sitting back on his seat, his legs dangling in the air.

"All I managed to bully out of my relatives, (and this happened last night when you detected the accidental magic), about that, was that my parents was murdered by a dark wizard."

"Good Heavens, you mean, you don't know…you don't know you're famous…"

"_Huh…_"

Suddenly Flitwick became angry, "Those intolerable muggles…Minerva was right…unbelievable…the Boy-Who-Lived doesn't know his own story."

"_Professor,_" I said intently. It broke Flitwick out of his ramblings.

"Sorry, Mr Potter, it's just that I never expected you not to know," squeaked Flitwick nervously. "But you can't enter Hogwarts without knowing." Flitwick took a deep breath and then launched into a story it seemed Harry had waited his whole life to hear, "During the seventies, a dark wizard gained ascendancy, he stooped himself as deep as you could go into the Dark Arts. His name was…_Voldemort_," Flitwick shuddered at speaking the name and looked nervously around, as if expecting said dark wizard to jump out of nowhere. "He gathered followers to himself, mostly through fear, intimidation, coercion, and some were attracted to his power and wanted a part of it, because he was gathering power in droves. It was dark times, Mr Potter, you didn't know who to trust. You didn't get friendly with unfamiliar witches and wizards, because a portion of You-Know-Who's followers had no choice, as they were bewitched into it. Things were looking very bad, I can honestly say we were a hairs breadth away from losing magical society to _him_ completely. Of course, one of the only safe places that remained was Hogwarts. Professor Dumbledore was the only wizard who could properly contest with You-Know-Who, some say _he_ was even afraid of the Headmaster. As such You-Know-Who never attempted to take Hogwarts for himself."

"Now your mother and father were as good a witch and wizard as anyone I've ever known," said Flitwick with a sad smile. "Your mother was a brilliant Charms Mistress. Sometimes I wonder though why You-Know-Who never tried to recruit them, but they would never stoop to evil. All that anyone knows is that You-Know-Who turned up at the village you were staying on Halloween ten years ago. You were just a year old. You-Know-Who murdered you parents and then tried to kill you too…and here is the mystery…but he couldn't. That scar on your forehead, is no ordinary one. That's the remnant of a powerful, evil curse, one designed solely to destroy and kill. It killed your mother and father, destroyed your house, but it didn't work on you and that's why you're famous. No one ever lived after he decided to kill them, no one except you, and he killed some of the best wizards and witches of the age, the McKinnons, the Bones, the Prewetts, and you were only a baby and you lived."

Something very painful was going on in Harry's mind. As Flitwick's story came to a close, he saw a blinding flash of green light, more clearly than he had ever remembered it before (it was the nightmare he usually got) – and he remembered something else, for the first time in his life – a high, cold, cruel laugh.

It was a rather pensive journey after that. Neither Harry nor Professor Flitwick felt much like talking.

Harry had never been to London before. Although Flitwick seemed to know where he was going, he was obviously not used to getting there in an ordinary way. He could walk under the ticket barrier on the Underground by just bending his head slightly, but refused to, and pushed the turnstile delightedly by raising his arms and handing his ticket to the amused collector. They climbed a broken-down escalator, which led up to a bustling road lined with shops. They passed bookshops and music stores, hamburger bars and cinemas, but nowhere that looked as if it could sell you a magic wand. This was just an ordinary street full of ordinary people.

"This is it,' said Flitwick, coming to a halt eventually, 'the Leaky Cauldron.'

It was a tiny, grubby looking pub. Harry could feel the power coming from it, and it covered the building like a web. The people hurrying by didn't glance at it. Their eyes slid from the big bookshop on one side to the record shop on the other as if they couldn't see the Leaky Cauldron at all.

"The pub has Muggle Aversion Wards on it," said Flitwick brightly. "Good work too, their eyes just can't focus on it or find it."

With that Flitwick led him inside. It was very dark and shabby. A few old women were sitting in a corner, drinking tiny glasses of sherry. One of them was smoking a long pipe. A little man in a top hat was talking to the old barman, who was quite bald and looked like a gummy walnut. The low buzz of chatter stopped when they walked in. Everyone seemed to know Professor Flitwick, and quite a few raised their glasses to him in greeting. All in all, Harry was supremely glad he had shape shifted his hair to cover the infamous scar. And luckily it seemed, Professor Flitwick was in no mood to fend off a mob, and he said as much, as he quickly steered Harry through the bar and out into a small, walled courtyard, where there was nothing but a dustbin and a few weeds. Flitwick pulled out his wand again and with a practiced ease he tapped the wall three bricks up and two across, three times with it.

The brick he had touched quivered – it wriggled – in the middle, a small hole appeared – it grew wider and wider – a second later they were facing an archway, an archway on to a cobbled street which twisted and turned out of sight.

"Welcome," squeaked Flitwick, "to Diagon Alley."

He grinned at Harry's amazement. They stepped through the archway. Harry looked quickly over his shoulder and saw the archway way shrink instantly back into solid wall. The sun shone brightly on a stack of cauldrons outside the nearest shop. _Cauldrons – All Sizes – Copper, Brass, Pewter, Silver – Self-Stirring – Collapsible_ said a sign hanging over them.

Harry wished he had about eight more eyes. He turned his head in every direction as they walked up the street, trying to look at everything at once: the shops, the things outside them, the people doing their shopping. A plump woman outside an apothecary's was shaking her head as they passed, saying, 'Dragon liver, seventeen Sickles an ounce, they're mad …'

A low, soft hooting came from a dark shop with a sign saying E_eylops Owl Emporium – Tawny, Screech, Barn, Brown and Snowy_. Several boys of about Harry's age had their noses pressed against a window with broomsticks in it. 'Look,' Harry heard one of them say, 'the new Nimbus Two Thousand – fastest ever –' There were shops selling robes, shops selling telescopes and strange silver instruments Harry had never seen before, windows stacked with barrels of bat spleens and eels' eyes, tottering piles of spell books, quills and rolls of parchment, potion bottles, globes of the moon…

"And here we are, the wizarding bank, Gringotts," announced Flitwick. "Run by goblins."

They had reached a snowy-white building, which towered over the other little shops. Standing beside its burnished bronze doors, wearing a uniform of scarlet and gold, was – something straight out of the gentler versions of D It was a goblin and it was about a head shorter than Harry. He had a swarthy, clever face, a pointed beard and, Harry noticed, very long fingers and feet. He bowed as they walked inside. Now they were facing a second pair of doors, silver this time, with words engraved upon them:

_Enter, stranger, but take heed_

_Of what awaits the sin of greed,_

_For those who take, but do not earn,_

_Must pay most dearly in their turn,_

_So if you seek beneath our floors_

_A treasure that was never yours,_

_Thief, you have been warned, beware_

_Of finding more than treasure there._

"There has never been a successful robbery of Gringotts on record," said Flitwick, who stood almost eye-to-eye with a goblin. "They employ powerful enchantments, traps, and rumor has it, even dragons to guard the vaults inside. Not to mention that the vaults themselves are so deep underground, you would die from hunger before you managed to get out with any loot."

A pair of goblins bowed them through the silver doors and they were in a vast marble hall. About a hundred more goblins were sitting on high stools behind a long counter, scribbling in large ledgers, weighing coins on brass scales, examining precious stones through eyeglasses. There were too many doors to count leading off the hall, and yet more goblins were showing people in and out of these. Flitwick and Harry made for the counter.

Flitwick had to jump on a tall stool to make himself visible to the goblin behind the counter.

"Morning," said Flitwick to a free goblin, "we've come to make a withdrawal from Mr Potter's vault."

"You have his key, sir?"

"Yes, it's somewhere in here," said Flitwick, searching the pockets of his waistcoat. Harry watched the goblin on their right weighing a pile of rubies as big as glowing coals. Flitwick finally produced the key and showed it to the goblin who stared at it closely.

"That seems to be in order. Very well, I will have someone take you down to the vault. Griphook!" Griphook was yet another goblin. Harry and Flitwick followed Griphook towards one of the doors leading off the hall. Griphook held the door open for them. Harry, who had expected more marble, was surprised. They were in a narrow stone passageway lit with flaming torches. It sloped steeply downwards and there were little railway tracks on the floor. Griphook whistled and a small cart came hurtling up the tracks towards them. They climbed in and were off.

At first they just hurtled through a maze of twisting passages. Harry tried to remember, left, right, right, left, middle fork, right, left, but it was impossible. The rattling cart seemed to know its own way, because Griphook wasn't steering.

Harry's eyes stung as the cold air rushed past them, but he kept them wide open. Once, he thought he saw a burst of fire at the end of a passage and twisted around to see if it was a dragon, but too late – they plunged even deeper, passing an underground lake where huge stalactites and stalagmites grew from the ceiling and floor.

The cart stopped at last beside a small door in the passage wall, and all three passengers climbed out. Griphook unlocked the door. A lot of green smoke came billowing out, and as it cleared, Harry gasped. Inside were mounds of gold, silver and bronze coins.

"This is all yours, Harry," said Flitwick with a grand gesture. All Harry's – it was incredible. The Dursleys couldn't have known about this or they'd have had it from him faster than blinking. How often had they complained how much Harry cost them to keep? And all the time there had been a small fortune belonging to him, buried deep under London. Flitwick advised him as he piled a certain amount in a bag.

"The gold ones are Galleons,' he explained. 'Seventeen silver Sickles to a Galleon and twenty-nine Knuts to a Sickle, it's easy. Right, that should be enough for a couple of terms."

One wild cart-ride later they stood blinking in the sunlight outside Gringotts. Harry didn't know where to run first now that he had a bag full of money. He didn't have to know how many Galleons there were to a pound to know that he was holding more money than he'd had in his whole life – more money than even Dudley had ever had.

"Now to get your uniform," said Flitwick, nodding at _Madam Malkin's Robes for All Occasions_. Madam Malkin herself was a squat, smiling witch all dressed in mauve. She greeted Flitwick genially and proceeded to fit Harry, by putting him up on a stool and using various tape measures, it amused Harry that some of the tape measures were doing the job themselves; they were clearly animated. There was another boy with a pale, pointed face standing on a footstool next to him while a second witch pinned up his long black robes. But Harry was still too busy firing magical theory questions at Flitwick to pursue any sort of conversation.

Next was what Harry was looking forward too most. Spell books were bought in a shop called _Flourish and Blotts_ where the shelves were stacked to the ceiling with books as large as paving stones bound in leather; books the size of postage stamps in covers of silk; books full of peculiar symbols and a few books with nothing in them at all. When Harry had to pick up _The Standard Book of Spells Grade 1_, he saw that _Grades 2_ through _7_ were stacked above it, and he pulled one of each down and into his featherlight, never-filling basket. The next half-an-hour was filled with Harry running this way and that, through the store, picking out anything that looked of interest besides his schoolbooks.

When Harry finally paid for his purchases an out of breath Flitwick said delightedly, "Well, I think I know which house you're going to, Mr Potter!"

"House?" asked Harry curiously.

"Yes," said Flitwick, "Hogwarts divides its students into four houses, each emphasizing and rewarding different character traits in its students. There is Slytherin, who rewards cunning. Hufflepuff whom emphasizes loyalty and hard work. Gryffindor, values bravery and determination. And finally, Ravenclaw, a house whom prizes learning and wit."

"Interesting," said Harry, filing the information away. "So you'd think I'd get divided into Ravenclaw, sir?"

"Most certainly," said Flitwick with a delighted grin.

Flitwick wouldn't let Harry buy a gold cauldron, stating that they were not necessary for first year potions but they got a nice set of scales for weighing potion ingredients and a collapsible brass telescope. Then they visited the apothecary's, which was fascinating enough to make up for its horrible smell, a mixture of bad eggs and rotted cabbages. Barrels of slimy stuff stood on the floor, jars of herbs, dried roots and bright powders lined the walls, bundles of feathers, strings of fangs and snarled claws hung from the ceiling. Harry bought a standard set of potion ingredients without much fanfare.

Outside the apothecary's, Harry mentally checked the list of things he still needed to buy.

"I just need a wand, a familiar, and a trunk now, sir."

Flitwick nodded and they headed off to Eeylops Owl Emporium, which was dark and full of rustling and flickering, jewel-bright eyes. Twenty minutes later, they left with Harry now carrying a large cage, which held a beautiful snowy owl, fast asleep with her head under her wing.

Buying a trunk was an interesting experience as well. Flitwick suggested that they head to _Gambol and Japes_ for that. On the outside, it appeared as if _Gambol and Japes_ was just a magical device store. But as Harry found out, a trunk could be considered a magical device as well. The most expensive of these were the ones with multiple compartments, which were alternated by turning a knob or using different keys, and some with even whole rooms enchanted into them. Harry supposed that the spatial dimensions were enchanted to be larger inside than outside. In the end Harry decided to buy a mid-ranged price trunk; it had seven compartments, security features, shrinkable on command and was enchanted to hold three times the space a normal trunk would have in each compartment.

Their last destination was narrow and shabby. Peeling gold letters over the door read _Ollivanders: Makers of Fine Wands since 382 BC_. A single wand lay on a faded purple cushion in the dusty window. A tinkling bell rang somewhere in the depths of the shop as they stepped inside. It was a tiny place, empty except for a single spindly chair which Professor Flitwick jumped into to wait.

Harry felt strangely as though he had entered a very strict library; he looked at the thousands of narrow boxes piled neatly right up to the ceiling. The power that Harry felt was near awe inspiring; he felt as if he had jumped into a pool of multi-colored magic.

'Good afternoon,' said a soft voice. Harry jumped; he had been so enraptured in experiencing the power that he did not notice the old man who had appeared before him. His eyes were wide and pale, shining like moons through the gloom of the shop.

"Hello,' said Harry awkwardly.

"Ah yes,' said the man. 'Yes, yes. I thought I'd be seeing you soon. Harry Potter." It wasn't a question. 'You have your mother's eyes. It seems only yesterday she was in here herself, buying her first wand. Ten and a quarter inches long, swishy, made of willow. Nice wand for charm work."

Mr Ollivander moved closer to Harry.

Harry felt as if more than just normal eyes were staring him. He idly wondered if Mr Ollivander truly had a third eye.

"Your father, on the other hand, favored a mahogany wand. Eleven inches. Pliable. A little more power and excellent for transfiguration. Well, I say your father favored it – it's really the wand that chooses the wizard, of course."

Mr Ollivander had come so close that he and Harry were almost nose-to-nose. Harry could see himself reflected in those misty eyes.

'And that's where …'

Mr Ollivander touched the lightning scar on Harry's forehead with a long, white finger.

'I'm sorry to say I sold the wand that did it,' he said softly. 'Thirteen and a half inches. Yew. Powerful wand, very powerful, and in the wrong hands … Well, if I'd known what that wand was going out into the world to do …'

He shook his head and then, to Harry's relief, spotted Flitwick.

"Filius Flitwick! It's been a while since I've seen you in here…Willow, eight inches, flexible…serving you well after all this time?"

"No complaints," said Flitwick with a smile.

"Well, now – Mr Potter. Let me see.' He pulled a long tape measure with silver markings out of his pocket. 'Which is your wand arm?"

"I'm right-handed,' said Harry.

"Hold out your arm. That's it." He measured Harry from shoulder to finger, then wrist to elbow, shoulder to floor, knee to armpit and round his head. As he measured, he said, "Every Ollivander wand has a core of a powerful magical substance, Mr. Potter. We use unicorn hairs, phoenix tail feathers and the heartstrings of dragons. No two Ollivander wands are the same, just as no two unicorns, dragons or phoenixes are quite the same. And of course, you will never get such good results with another wizard's wand." Mr Ollivander was flitting around the shelves, taking down boxes.

"Right then, Mr Potter. Try this one. Beechwood and dragon heartstring. Nine inches. Nice and flexible. Just take it and give it a wave."

Harry took the wand and he willed it to illuminate…it was a simple little cantrip that would test the foci without the potential for blowing up. A weak light came out…looking like a flashlight with low batteries…

Mr Ollivander snatched it out of his hand, looking quite impressed.

"Maple and phoenix feather. Seven inches. Quite whippy. Try –"

Harry had not even touched the wand…he could already tell it would not work. "No," was all Harry said.

Ollivander nodded and said, "Here, ebony and unicorn hair, eight and a half inches, springy. Go on, go on, try it out."

But once again, Harry shook his head before he even touched it. And so on they went. The pile of tried wands was mounting higher and higher on the spindly chair, but the more wands Mr Ollivander pulled from the shelves, the happier he seemed to become.

"Tricky customer, eh? Not to worry, we'll find the perfect match here somewhere – I wonder, now – yes, why not – unusual combination – holly and phoenix feather, eleven inches, nice and supple."

Harry took the wand, and he knew instantly that this was the one. He felt his power respond to the foci and he grinned in satisfaction. The effects of Harry getting his wand for the first time were rather evident to Flitwick and Ollivander. The air in the shop swirled around Harry like a small tornado, his long spiky black hair blowing ethereally with it…and then a near visible whitish aura blossomed out of Harry for the briefest of moments before contracting back into him and disappeared from sight. Harry's wand on the other hand had shot out a near rainbow of magics.

Ollivander looked wide-eyed at Harry as this happened, and cried out, "Bravo! Yes, indeed, oh, very good. Well, well, well … how curious … how very curious …'

He put Harry's wand back into its box and wrapped it in brown paper, still muttering, "Curious … curious …"

"Sorry," said Harry, "but what's curious?"

Mr Ollivander fixed Harry with his pale stare.

"I remember every wand I've ever sold, Mr Potter. Every single wand. It so happens that the phoenix whose tail feather is in your wand, gave another feather – just one other. It is very curious indeed that you should be destined for this wand when its brother – why, its brother gave you that scar."

Harry frowned, wondering what the significance of that was.

"Yes, thirteen and a half inches. Yew. Curious indeed how these things happen. The wand chooses the wizard, remember … I think we must expect great things from you, Mr Potter … After all, He Who Must Not Be Named did great things – terrible, yes, but great."

Harry shivered. He wasn't sure he liked Mr Ollivander too much. He paid seven gold Galleons for his wand and Mr Ollivander bowed them from his shop.

The late-afternoon sun hung low in the sky as Harry and Flitwick made their way back down Diagon Alley, back through the wall, back through the Leaky Cauldron, now empty. Harry put Mr Ollivander's reaction into the back of his mind and continued to ask Professor Flitwick questions; Harry did this of course, to see what the real wizarding world thought could and couldn't be done with magic, as opposed to what Harry believed could and couldn't. It astonished him though to find a large discrepancy…as such Harry knew he would have to be very careful how he employed his powers.

Harry knew already that he would be challenging the status quo of magic, and he would be either be lauded or vilified by the wizarding world.

In the meantime, Harry silently thanked the inventor of his magical trunk. All his purchases were packed inside and shrunk to the size of a small matchbox. He could just imagine what an effort it would have been to normally carry everything around, especially through the Underground. They could not help but get strange stares though as Harry was forced to carry his snowy owl (who was still sleeping) on his lap.

Soon, Professor Flitwick guided Harry to a connecting train to Surrey at Paddington Station. The diminutive professor handed Harry an envelope.

"This is your ticket for the Hogwarts Express train," squeaked Flitwick. "On the first of September, King's Cross Station, London. You're looking for Platform Nine and Three Quarters…that's the literal position of Platfrom…between Nine and Ten…understand?"

"It's hidden, then," said Harry eventually, "like The Leaky Cauldron."

"Indeed," nodded Flitwick. "There is an illusion of a stone barrier covering the entrance, be as unobtrusive as possible when going through it. If you still can't find it, look for a magical family and follow them. Anyway…the train is leaving…see you soon, Mr Potter."

The train pulled out of the station. Harry watched Flitwick through the window and he saw him walk off to alcove hidden from view…turn on his heel and teleported away. Harry himself got out of his seat after a few minutes and got off at the next stop of the train…found a deserted alleyway next to the station and disappeared as well.

Harry opened his eyes.

He didn't know what had happened. He had teleported like he always did of late. But instead of the usual compression feeling, he had for a moment felt as if something was helping him along; it was as if a giant hand had reached out and carried him forward towards his destination.

He looked around, it was definitely the place where he had envisioned to appear. The small, walled off, empty courtyard that all the shops had in Little Whinging Mall. He was standing in _The Fantasy Emporium_'s little courtyard, where Daniel kept the trash bins. Harry tried to ponder the feeling for a while, but shrugged it off…he was where he was supposed to be.

That's all that mattered.

Wasn't it?

888888888888888888888888

Harry opened his eyes.

He would have gasped if he could, but his partially open mouth did not want to obey. The majority of his body was completely immobile. He could turn his head slightly, blink his eyes, and turn them this way, or that. But that was about it. He could also feel he was lying down, but the lack of a bed underneath him, illustrated the fact that he was being hovered in mid-air.

Harry scanned the room he was in.

It was unlike any he had ever encountered. It seemed vaguely constructed of metal, but Harry knew it wasn't. Glass and transparent plastics were also in abundance. The colors of the room varied from gunmetal gray to blending in seamlessly with dark purples. Occasionally he managed to make out glowing symbols around the room that seemed familiar. If Harry weren't frightened out of his wits he would have found the place quite aesthetically pleasing.

A surge of light drew Harry's attention away from the room to directly above him. An arrangement of amber crystals was hanging down from the ceiling and it was pulsating with an inner light. These crystals were oriented directly towards Harry. And somewhere in his own mind he fathomed that they had to be responsible for hovering and completely immobilizing him. The surge of light that had drew Harry's attention was the release of three glowing green orbs that headed towards him and started to move around him as if they were moons, and he, the planet.

Harry had no idea what they were doing…but he could feel them…he could touch them with his power…but before he could even think of doing so a voice spoke up.

"You're awake."

The voice was very odd. It was low and grave in tone…it had an almost droning quality to it. Harry could not see the owner of the voice, but could tell that it had come from behind his head; out of his range of vision.

"Good. You are beyond my fondest dreams…my best hope had been to find someone with a hundredth of your potential. I'm rather amazed that your kind had evolved so quickly again…remarkable."

Harry didn't understand. His kind? Did the voice mean…wizards?

"I must apologize for kidnapping you," said the voice. "But it's become necessary, sadly. The others aren't willing to do what needs to be done. So I must continue the work, by myself."

Harry only understood the fact that he had somehow been kidnapped in mid-teleport by the voice, and couldn't fathom how that was possible.

"I want to show you something," continued the voice, "its something that perhaps less than a hundred of your kind have ever seen." The amber crystals above Harry rotated, until Harry was sure he was facing a large curved window. Inwardly, Harry was amazed…for outside the window was something he had only seen on TV. A huge blue sphere was beyond the window, dotted with clouds, with greens and browns…it was Earth…with the huge void of space above it…but then Harry finally saw something that would complete his amazement…

Harry had met goblins just this day…so the idea of another sentient species was only a few hours old to him…but he could now count meeting his second sentient species.

Standing there, just next to the window was a being, slightly smaller than a goblin. It had thin bipedal limbs and was completely gray and looked very frail, the head of the being was rather large. Two fathomless black eyes stared out of curved slits at Harry.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter Three – The Asgard**

It had been one week since Loki whisked Harry away in mid-teleport.

The star ship Harry was on was still in orbit around Earth.

During this week Harry had remained restrained on Loki's idea of an examination table, and he was only allowed to awaken when the tiny alien wanted some conversation. He told Harry that apparently it was a very lonely existence, being an exiled scientist. He allowed Harry about an hour's consciousness a day, during which he would also manipulate the restraining field, giving Harry forced exercise, it also served for some very mind blowing conversations…about things that most Earth scientists would be drooling to discover.

Harry had obviously deduced that Loki was a member of an advanced alien race, hundreds if not thousands of years beyond humanity in technology…and eventually Loki told him what they called themselves…the Asgard.

And, as it turned out, Loki was wholly responsible for all the alien abduction stories to emerge since the mid nineteen forties. "Your species had split the atom…and that is a very rare thing to achieve, especially with the current situation in your galaxy. It attracted my attention and I've been interested in your species ever since."

This, of course, led to a whole bunch of other questions to explode in Harry's head. Such as why?

"I'll answer this question," said Loki eventually, "because I am fully aware of your abilities and powers, how I know this I will not say, that is for you to find out, but I want to obtain your honest co-operation and not try to escape, it is rather taxing on my ship's energy reserves to keep you suppressed."

That at least answered the question of why Harry couldn't use any of his power ever since he had been transported aboard.

"To put it simply," continued Loki, "the Asgard are a dying race. We have achieved a form of immortality in that we have developed the technology to transfer our consciousness to a newly grown organic body."

"Clones?" guessed Harry, biologists and genetic scientists were researching in that direction, he had read.

"Indeed, we reproduce totally through a form of enhanced cellular meiosis," said Loki.

"I take it you lost the ability to do so through the other way…" said Harry delicately, as Loki most obviously did not have any visible external reproductive organs, and walked around with no clothes.

"Quite," said Loki looking somewhat uncomfortable, "as such making a copy of a copy, over time causes…"

"The law of diminishing returns," interrupted Harry, he was somewhat familiar with this; he did an extra credit biology project and had used High School books to do it.

"Indeed," said Loki, "as such we developed a way of introducing artificial mutation into the cloning process, to allow nature some leeway again, but we are reaching the limits of what our technology is capable of."

"So you're researching humans to find clues to solve the problem or at the very least stave it off somewhat," stated Harry. "So why would you be exiled for doing this?"

"Because the Asgard High Council was unwilling to do what was necessary to save our race," said Loki angrily, or at least Harry assumed that the expression on the Asgard's face was something akin to anger, "they balked at the kidnapping and the non-lethal invasive procedures to retrieve samples for study."

"Is that's what you've been doing to me?" asked Harry, frowning.

"Yes," said Loki, "I've simply been inserting microprobes into certain organs and taking a relatively miniscule sample. The green balls of light you see around you are medical scanners."

Harry wondered why he did not feel more upset at this. Technically, Loki was performing all sorts of medical tests without his consent. He was certainly angry, but it was somewhat tempered with how accommodating Loki was being, he even transported up some of Harry's favorite foods and fed them to Harry using the restraining field…it almost felt like someone else was using his hands to cut the food and bring it towards his mouth…where of course, Harry would take over, since his head was allowed to move freely.

Of course, this didn't mean that the instant the little alien made a mistake that Harry wouldn't capitalize on it and try to make his escape, but as yet, no such opportunities had arisen. Harry had decided to play along with Loki and try to gain a measure of trust from him…with it, would come a little more freedom and perhaps the means to affect an escape. So there was rather a method in Harry's madness in not resisting more overtly.

The next mind blowing question that Harry got answered was rather a whopper.

"What did you mean by 'the current situation in the galaxy' and that for a species to split the atom was rare?"

"Oh," said Loki, looking up from a strange curved pedestal that seemed to be flashing readings from the medical scanners at him. "I was referring to the Goa'uld."

"Can you explain more?" said Harry, trying to keep irritation out of his voice.

"The Goa'uld are a parasitic species," explained Loki, "in the last ten thousand years they have become one of the more influential and dominant forces in your Galaxy. Their natural form resembles something like a…snake, I believe is the closest word to it. They burrow into their human hosts through the neck or mouth and twirl themselves around the spinal column and extend tiny probes into the brain…essentially controlling the human. The Goa'uld are in every sense of the word, ego-maniacal, powerful and have an overwhelming desire to gain more power."

Before Harry could even digest the horror of this, Loki went on as if he were merely discussing the local weather.

"The first Goa'uld inhabitation of a human host occurred when the Supreme System Lord found a young boy in Egypt and afterwards that Goa'uld began to masquerade as the supreme god for that particular civilization's faith…humans called him, Ra."

"You're telling me all the ancient Egyptian gods were actually the Goa'uld?" asked Harry incredulously.

"Indeed," said Loki, looking down into his console, "in fact, various Classical cultures on your planet have been influenced by them. However, the Goa'uld were not happy with just Earth, they wanted more. So, they took humans and placed them on other inhabitable worlds to use as slaves. When the Goa'uld were finished with a planet, they didn't bother relocating the slaves and just left them there to fend for themselves, but the Goa'uld keeps tabs on the technological development of these displaced human civilizations, and whenever one is deemed to be too advanced…they are attacked and wiped out."

Harry took a few deep breaths trying to take this all in.

"But what then about Earth? Surely our current level of technology is a threat to them?"

"Yes," said Loki, "but the Goa'uld are unaware of Earth at the present moment. Interstellar space travel still takes years between destinations, at least for the Goa'uld." Loki seemed smug as he said this. "And five thousand years ago there was a successful rebellion by the ancient Egyptians against Ra. They managed to secretly stockpile an arsenal of Ra's advanced weaponry and fought against his Jaffa (the Goa'uld's warriors). They forced Ra to leave in his ship…and they buried the only means with which the Goa'uld could efficiently project their power onto Earth…the Stargate."

"The Stargate?"

"The Stargate is the legacy of the most powerful and ancient civilization to evolve in this Galaxy," said Loki. "The Asgard has no name for this civilization, as their rise and fall is a mystery lost to the ravages of time. We call them, the Ancients." At this, Loki looked up and narrowed his large eyes at Harry. "The Stargate is a device that the Ancients placed on each world they terraformed in this galaxy. It allows near instantaneous transportation between worlds that have an active Stargate. You step through it and you are demolecularized and your matter is sent through subspace to reappear at your destination. As such it was a much more efficient way of moving across the galaxy."

More revelations accompanied Harry and Loki's discussions, such as the Hyperdrive, and he went into more detail on the Stargate. Though most of the theoretical science flew right over Harry's head, he understood the gist of it and what the Stargate was principally made out of, the powerful mineral called Naquadah; which was also used by the Goa'uld in most of their space-faring and weapons technology, in fact, the mineral was so valued by the Goa'uld that it was even present in their blood.

It was at the end of the week though, that every single plan Harry had dreamed up to escape was rather neatly thrown out the window.

Loki had once again revived Harry and another series of examinations was due to begin. However, even before the little green scanners could come out and surround Harry, a strange-pitched sound began to resound within the room. Harry briefly saw Loki moving as fast as his tiny legs could carry him towards another console, outside of his range of vision. The little alien was muttering in a language that had to be Asgard, but Harry did not need to understand that Loki was really angry and irritated, and what passed for Asgard invective was passing his gray lips.

Loki had once again revived Harry facing the large window out into space, and he was treated to a fantastic sight.

Space above Earth was rippling and twisting. In the center of it was a rather beautiful dark purple mass of energy that was swirling and crackling with lightning, star light was being distorted around it…and from within a huge starship swooped out of it; the ship was made of a combination of wedge and hammer shapes, two large wedges were vertical and Harry guessed that was where the engines would be, the two wedges were joined with a central gray hull that tapered to a large hammer shape, this time in the vertical.

Harry was amazed at the sheer technological might it would take to construct a ship like that. And it was the first time he had seen a Hyperspace window in action.

_The Space Shuttle would be swatted like a bug against this thing_, thought Harry.

Space behind the giant ship returned to the normal inky blackness of void. More invective passed Loki's lips. Out of the corner of his eye, Harry saw a holographic screen appear out of nowhere and on it was another Asgard, this one slightly different than Loki, but it was very subtle, and this Asgard was wearing some sort of pendant. Clearly it was somebody important.

Loki and the other Asgard now proceeded to into engage into a visibly heated argument. It lasted for almost a minute, and ended when Loki emitted a string of harmonic sounds that visibly shocked the other Asgard…and the connection was cut.

"We must flee," said Loki and Harry saw the Earth was rapidly tilting and but a moment later disappeared completely…the lights in the room dimmed slightly…and Harry saw out of the window, space folding and twisting again…Loki was opening a Hyperspace window!

"Hey! That was my home! Take me back!" screamed Harry. Loki's ship suddenly shot forward into the mass of purple energy…there was a blinding flash…and Harry saw out the window that they were now moving in a seemingly endless tunnel, made out of hypnotic blue swirls that passed by the ship at an alarming speed.

"I had no choice," said Loki, coming back into view of Harry. "But I will not give you up so easily! You are the find and opportunity of a lifetime! Thor will need to be more creative to catch up with me." Harry had no idea who Thor was, and at the moment he didn't care. Loki had explained the Hyperdrive to him in brief detail, and by now they were already a hundred light-years from Earth.

"I don't give an effing about that, I thought you were going to send me back when you were finished?" shouted Harry angrily and half-desperate.

"I lied," said Loki shortly.

Harry could only gape at the Asgard in numb disbelief and his mind latched onto his only hope, "But I will surely be missed back home, and not to mention this Thor will eventually find you?"

"No one will miss you back home," said Loki smugly. "You see, a few days ago I surreptitiously transported a sample of blood out of your body while you slept in your house. From that I was able to grow a clone of you. Then when I captured you I simply switched you for your clone and copied your all of your memories into the clone. And, as for Thor, knowing him, it would take him quite a while to find me and even if he did corner me I would dump you on his lap, and escape in his altruistic attempt to help you."

Before Harry could even come to terms with that, Loki said, "Thor has forced my hand though, I will need to move up the pace of my tests, and for that we need to move to the next phase."

Harry couldn't keep from gulping in nervousness at the eager glint he saw in Loki's large black eyes.

"And w-what would that be?" said Harry, trembling.

"Well," said Loki, falling into his boring lecture voice he had been using whenever explaining something to Harry, "it's all good and well to study an advanced human such as you in your early adolescent stage…but what I am most interested in is an adult specimen. And since Thor is in pursuit that leaves me with but one option…Goodnight."

And before Harry could blink…he was unconscious.

Harry had no concept of time when he was put under by whatever device Loki was using. He still had a sense of self, but it floated in a vast darkness seemingly greater than the Universe itself. But when Harry awoke, he was surprised to find that his limbs responded to his mind's command. He jerked upright and felt a thin, gray blanket fall off his body. He was lying on a rather comfortable bed, but while it felt nice, visibly it looked horribly uncomfortable; a mere man sized protrusion that seemed to slide out of the wall of the room he was in.

And Harry groaned when he saw the clear signs of Asgard design on the walls. He was still Loki's prisoner it seemed. Harry returned to pondering the mystery of the bed; he pressed his hand down towards the hard flat surface and was surprised when he found some sort of soft resistance pressing against it; it was as if there was an invisible mattress on the protrusion.

But Harry lost all interest in it when he noticed his hand. It had changed. His fingers were longer and thinner than he remembered, and there were slight hairs growing out of it. His eyes slowly traveled up his bare arm and again he found it way more muscled and longer than he recalled…at this point Harry was freaking out slightly.

He jumped off the Asgard bed and belatedly saw that he had not a scrap of clothing on, his nakedness took a backseat though to when he saw the rest of his body; visible pectoral, abdominal muscles rippled as he moved, his legs were tall and muscled too.

Then the gravity of what Loki had done hit him full in the face.

"He aged me!" said Harry to himself, thinking furiously on how that was possible. _Loki had said the Asgard had cloning technology, could that be used to age a naturally born human?_ _Of course it could,_ he thought dimly. _If he could create an eleven year old clone of me in a few days_.

Harry tried to walk and promptly ended up tripping on his own feet and falling onto the cold floor. Angered at his prat fall, Harry muttered, "My balance is all whacked out." So Harry spent the next boring few hours getting used to his older body. He estimated he had been aged ten years or so by Loki and soon enough he actually found it quite cool. When he was young it had long been a fantasy of Harry to think of himself as older, as everyone was bigger than him. He imagined if he could just turn into an adult he could leave the Dursleys and strike out on his own, he would never have to tolerate a beating from Dudley again.

Of course, this didn't mean that Harry was not angry about the whole thing…he had been somewhat looking forward to the whole being a teenager deal, going to school, perhaps dating a few girls, and the like. But that whole phase had just been swatted away thanks to a conniving alien.

One of the walls to the side of the room gave a beep and began to part. Harry had hastily gathered power into his hands, readying to blast Loki with a Blasting Spell should the treacherous Asgard walk through. He relaxed slightly though when he saw, not Loki, but what looked like the Asgard called Thor walk calmly into the room. The obsidian pendant on the small alien's chest glinted in the artificial light of the room.

"Greetings," monotoned Thor, bending his large head slightly. "I mean you no harm." The alien stared pointedly at the glowing magic coalesced in Harry's hands.

"I got that line from Loki, too," said Harry, now registering the deep baritone of his own voice.

"Unlike, Loki, I have not kept you in a restraining field, nor will I keep you confined," said Thor easily. "My name is Thor, Supreme Commander of the Asgard Fleet, and I will allow you free reign on my ship, the _Beliskner_."

Harry weighed his options for a few moments and then relaxed his hands, letting the magic dissipate. His nakedness now reared to the forefront of his mind and he looked for the blanket that had covered him on the Asgard bed, only to find that both blanket and bed had disappeared into the wall.

"Uh…you wouldn't happen to have seen my clothes?" asked Harry, trying to look nonchalant as he covered his manhood with his forearm, trying to make it look like a relaxed pose.

"I apologize," said Thor, "but Loki released you in this fashion in an escape pod, just as I was ready to catch his ship with a gravimetric trap. Your pod was on a direct course for a sun. I was forced to break off and rescue you…Loki escaped."

"I guess he was finally finished with me," said Harry with a sigh.

"On behalf of the Asgard people, I apologize for the actions of Loki, he does not represent the will or intent of the Asgard," said Thor, bowing again. "I am now obligated to help you in any way that I can, but by what name can I address you?"

"My name is Harry."

"Very well…Harry, now what help do you desire or wish?"

"I don't suppose you can de-age me, and arrange for me to replace my clone, on Earth?" I asked hopefully.

"Unfortunately, that is not practical," said the Asgard, looking sad. "A clone's ageing can be sped up but not reversed, a Tlalok cannot be turned back into its ingredients." Harry was totally unfamiliar with the metaphor but guessed it was like saying you can't get the individual eggs out of an omelet. "And you are not aware of how much time has passed since you were kidnapped by Loki."

"How long?" said Harry blearily.

"Six of your Earth months," said Thor succinctly. Harry only closed his eyes in response and could feel a slight headache coming on. "And even if we could return you to your former age, your clone has been on Earth too long. For you too replace him now would not work. Your experiences have been too divergent."

"Do you have anything that resembles clothes then?" said Harry next.

"As you have seen, Asgard do not need to wear clothes, however…" Thor trailed off and spoke into an odd triangular device that was emitting a soft inner light and it was marked with Asgard symbols all around the edges. There was a flash of white light and a _whooshing_ sound, and a circular plastic container about a foot in height appeared in front of Thor.

The container was filled with a chrome liquid like metal substance that was swirling inside it as if it was being constantly stirred.

"I can offer this as a temporary substitute for clothes on such short notice," said Thor. "It is what Asgard use when we want to work in the vacuum of space or hostile environments, while still being very comfortable to wear, in fact I doubt you will even feel as if you are wearing it."

Harry eyed the container warily but then shook his head to dispel his paranoia, he needed some form of clothes and something would be better than nothing. "What do I do to put it on?"

"Simply remove the lid and touch a finger to the substance, the suit will do the rest," explained Thor. Harry did so, and slowly inched a finger into the chrome liquid. The liquid felt, almost like nothing, there was a slight pressure on his finger to show that it was there, but it was practically featherlight. Then the chrome liquid began to snake all over Harry's hand…it advanced further…up his arm, down his chest and back, soon Harry's body was totally covered in the mass of chrome. It was expanding and contracting and swirling, as if trying to find every curve on Harry's skin and molding itself to it perfectly…and soon enough, that's exactly what it did.

Below the neck, Harry now wore something like a form-fitting chrome catsuit that covered his hand and feet as well; he was relieved when he saw that the suit had hidden his privates to a reasonable degree (as if he was wearing tight boxers).

"Pretty cool," said Harry.

"Indeed," was all Thor said, "it has an artificial intelligence matrix woven into the design of the molecules, and will respond automatically to any pressure or atmospheric change, and toxic substances you might suddenly be exposed to in your environment. It can easily absorb and withstand a few Jaffa Staff weapon blasts and makes you impervious to the Goa'uld Zat'Nikatel."

"Loki told me about the Staff weapon but what is a Zat…Nik…?" asked Harry in confusion.

"The Zat'Nikatel is a hand weapon that looks like a coiled serpent, it fires an electric energy blast that will stun most life forms, however, a second consequent shot within five minutes will kill, and a third disintegrates."

"Ouch," said Harry wincing, appreciating the chromesuit even more.

"Now we must move on to your situation, this will be a life changing decision on your part, so I will not expect your answer now, Harry," said Thor gravely. "As I see it, you have three options."

"The first, you can stay with the Asgard, I will deliver you to an Asgard protected planet in this Galaxy, where you can learn of science and technology and train your advanced human abilities under an Asgard mentor I have in mind; her name is Heimdoll." Harry's wasn't sure he was imagining it or not, but he was sure he heard fondness in Thor's voice. "The problem with this is that you will only have Asgard companionship and it will be lonely for you, but you will learn of the broader Universe and its mysteries. Eventually, you may find yourself a calling and pursue it."

"Your second option, would be to live with a suitable human culture on another planet. There is one such culture the Asgard know of but maintain little contact with. They call themselves the Tollan. They have a much higher technology than Earth, by about a thousand years or so. The Goa'uld are slightly less advanced than the Tollan, so you would be relatively safe there. You can be taught there in their understanding of science and any direction you choose. The problem here is that you cannot openly practice your powers. Despite their advanced technology the Tollan are not much different from normal Earthlings in terms of evolutionary development, you would be even more of an outsider to them than you already are."

"Your third option, will be to return to Earth, and live a life in another country of your planet, and again learning as you would have originally. You risk discovery, however, should you return and with the level of immaturity and paranoia in current Earth governments that would not bode well for you."

Harry was frowning and so many thoughts zoomed in his head that he was sure he had burned out a few neurons. He could only say one coherent thing at the moment.

"I need more information about the choices," said Harry pensively. "Can I use your computer to get that?"

"Most certainly, Harry, follow me."

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Harry sat in an uncomfortable backless chair, in front of him was a curved silver pedestal and a few meters in front of him hovered a large holographic display. The silver pedestal still had Asgard writing on its edges, but Thor had converted the majority of the pedestal into English and even had a smaller version of a standard keyboard at the bottom right.

Thor had already called up the relevant data Harry needed though and so Harry only used the pedestal to scroll through the information. Only when Harry wanted to branch off on a tangent line of research would he have to attempt to use the controls, but Thor was hovering patiently at the edge of the large database room should Harry need help.

Harry spent the next two hours browsing through information on the Asgard and Tollan cultures. It was quite detailed and fascinating stuff. The one conclusion he did come to about the Tollan though was that they tended to be a bit too pacifist for Harry's tastes. Though it was a sign of a mature and enlightened society to not put too much effort into weapons research and development; the data he was seeing on the Tollan said they put hardly more than a token effort into it, and focused more on passive technologies; power generation, medical technology and so forth.

Harry shook his head and sighed. He had read Sun Tzu's Art of War a year ago in the public library and the Tollan attitude was a recipe for disaster.

The Asgard while not sharing this attitude, had moved themselves into a corner with this cloning reproduction thing, as evidenced by Loki.

Harry also researched the situation in the galaxy as a whole. And he was rather appalled by what he was seeing. He knew from Loki that the Goa'uld were a dominant force, but it finally hit home just how dominant they were. Seeing how the galaxy was divided amongst the various competing System Lords made him frown grimly at the screen.

Finally, Harry turned around to face Thor. He had decided it was best to just make the decisions quickly and not agonize for days and hours over it, he didn't know if Thor would put up with him for that long.

"I've decided," said Harry softly.

"Indeed," said Thor, inviting Harry to elaborate.

"I think I will choose a combination of choices one and three," said Harry thoughtfully. "I will spend as long as it takes with Heimdoll to educate myself to Asgard standards and explore and master my powers to the best of my ability. I'll also want to explore the galaxy through the Stargate occasionally." Harry paused gathering his thoughts.

"I definitely don't want the Goa'uld to find Earth either. I want to protect my world. Does the Asgard have any intelligence on the Earth Stargate, is it still buried?"

"My ship's sensor records should be able to tell us that," said Thor and he stepped forward and his long spindly fingers danced over the pedestal. Harry berated himself that he should not have been surprised that Thor could also work it in English. With a brain that large, Thor could possibly have mastered dozens if not hundreds of languages. Up on the screen a large sensor image of Earth appeared. "These readings were taken as I confronted Loki in Earth orbit," explained Thor. "It is searching for the characteristic Naquadah signature of the Stargate."

A single cross-hair was dancing over the image of Earth and quite suddenly it settled on a spot in the North-American continent.

"So they have found it," commented Thor. "Our last reports said that it was still buried in Egypt."

"When was this?"

"The last Asgard ship to do a scan of Earth passed this way ninety years ago," said Thor.

"I guess I shouldn't be surprised that the bloody Americans have it," said Harry with a grunt.

"It is located in what appears to be a military storage warehouse near a city called Washington D.C.," said Thor further. "They have perhaps not deduced how the gate system works yet."

"Can anyone connect to the gate?" asked Harry nervously.

"No," said Thor, and Harry let out a breath of relief. "The gate is unpowered."

"That simplifies things," said Harry. "Anyway, I do want to eventually return to Earth, maybe for a visit only."

"Very well," said Thor bowing again. "I'll set a course for Heimdoll's location, please feel free to spend the journey here, you can also use this pedestal to call for food supplements." And with that Thor walked out of the database room and the door closed automatically behind him. A few minutes later, Harry saw out the small window the starfield begin to blur into lines as Thor's ship turned on its axis and then settled back into pinpricks of light as the ship settled on it new heading.

The space ahead abruptly folded and turned purple in maelstrom of energy and a moment later they were in Hyperspace again.

The journey took eight hours, and it was then that Harry discovered the perils of Asgard cuisine. In retrospect Harry should have known that what an Asgard considers food would be vastly different to a human, even an 'advanced human' as Thor called him. The computer delivered by transporter a plate of what looked like different colored cookies in various basic geometric shapes. Harry had always liked chocolate flavor so he picked up a round, brown shaped cookie and bit into it…only to promptly spit it back out onto the silver plate in disgust. It tasted like extremely potent liquorish. Harry told the computer to take the plate away and he set about trying to get the computer to more accurately approximate human food.

He didn't manage to get rid of the different colored cookies, but did manage to change the flavor to a tolerable pumpkin-pie like taste.

Harry spent the last hour of the journey comfortably ensconced on an Asgard bed he had the computer deliver for him, and faced the small window, letting the swirls of Hyperspace and the hum of the ship lull him into a brief catnap.

A change in the hum of the ship shook him out of it and he saw that they had exited Hyperspace and were approaching an Earth-like world. There seemed to very little landmass on this world, it was mostly water and what land there was, was arranged in an archipelago. Harry imagined that the beaches would be heavenly to walk on.

He turned though as he heard the doors to the room part open again.

"We have arrived at Heimdoll's location," said Thor. "It's an underwater complex she lives in, near one of the larger islands in the northern hemisphere of the planet."

"It looks lovely from here," said Harry.

"It is indeed an aesthetically pleasing world, I thought it would merit your approval," said Thor. "Are you ready to leave for the surface?"

"Sure," said Harry, feeling rather uncertain, but trying not to show it. "Where are we headed first?"

"We will first be transporting to the base of the Stargate on this world, so that you can Teleport yourself there if you need to," said Thor.

"How do you know I need to see a place before I can Teleport there?" asked Harry curiously.

"Simple logic, Harry," said Thor in a chiding tone. "Just as an Asgard transporter cannot work without destination coordinates, so you cannot Teleport without a firm idea of where you want to go."

"Oh," said Harry feeling stupid. Thor brought forth the triangular jewel device in his hand again and stroked it with one finger. There was a whooshing sound again and Harry found himself enveloped in white light and the world twisted away from him into a void of white…his consciousness was aware of the journey as he sped towards the planet at mindblowing speed…and not a moment later the blinding light was back and Harry felt his feet on solid ground again…the light disappeared and he blinked to regain his vision.

He was standing in a large clearing of sorts, which was surrounded by forest green palm trees. Off to one side, and visible beyond the trees was a long white sandy beach. Waves crashed onto the beach in a rolling crescendo of beautiful sound, which Harry felt he could listen to all day. The ocean beyond that was just as beautiful, it was so clear and blue that it felt unreal. Except for the Stargate this island had clearly been left untouched by anything resembling intelligent lifeforms. Adding to surrealistic feel of the planet was the clear blue sky with a single sun slowly climbing upwards…showing that it was morning, and two moons were visible as well.

"Thor, is there intelligent life on this world?"

"None have evolved yet," said Thor. "And thus far there have been no confirmed report of Naquadah on this planet, as such, the Goa'uld would not be interested in it. And this Stargate is unknown to the Goa'uld. The Asgard obtained this world Stargate address from salvaged pieces of the Ancient's Repository of Knowledge."

"Repository of Knowledge?" asked Harry curiously.

"It's the sum of knowledge that the Ancients had before they moved on from our little corner of the Universe," said Thor. "To give you some idea of how vast it is, the Asgard have been studying the nine percent of the total volume of the Repository for as long as I can remember, and we have barely scratched the surface."

Harry shook his head in awe, trying to imagine that amount of knowledge and understanding, and failing.

"What is Heimdoll studying here, if I may ask?" asked Harry next, his eyes scanning the surroundings and memorizing.

"Heimdoll has two specialties, theoretical physics and biology," replied Thor. "At the moment she is studying a sea life form we believe may develop into a sentient species. She is also a member of the Asgard genetics council and was principally responsible for expelling Loki for his crude methodology."

"Then she and I will get along fine," said Harry with a grin. Thor regarded Harry for a moment and said, "Do you have a firm picture in your mind of this location?"

Harry nodded, and Thor thumbed the jewel device in his hand again and with another _whoosh_ and flash of transport, they disappeared.

They reappeared in a room, which Harry now associated with Asgard design; matt black and gray floors, transparent artfully designed frosted doors, with control pedestals occasionally dotting the room. The only obvious difference Harry saw to every other room on Thor's ship was the view outside the large curved window…a blue ocean was beyond it; the occasional bubble would sprinkle upwards and strangely shaped fish would glide past looking almost like Manta Rays, but not quite. Harry heard the sound of what had to be whale song also, but logically he knew that the closest whale was over a thousand light-years away on Earth. He could also hear the relaxing sound of the waves crashing through the ocean, and he judged that they were not that far from the island he and Thor had just visited.

Harry heard the tell tale swishing of the door open and he spun around to face it. Walking over the threshold was another Asgard, again looking slightly different to Thor in the way they gray skin pigmentation was patterned, but this Asgard did not have the High Council pendant. Harry tried to study 'her' for obvious signs of being female, but gave up after a few moments, not wanting to be rude by staring too intently…

"Ahh, and here he is," said a strangely high pitched voice, and that was the only female attribute Harry could lock on to in his mind. Harry thought Heimdoll sounded a bit like an overly maternal Aunt in her tone of voice. Heimdoll paused a few feet in front of Harry and looked him up and down appraisingly. "Hmmph," she said, "Loki was always good in speeding up growth factors, and I certainly hope that clone he supplanted you with is up to the task. He was always a little bit lacking in his cloning technique."

Harry began shift uncomfortably. Heimdoll was staring at him almost as if she was a cook surveying a meal made by a rival chef. "I think I better give your genome a look though, no telling what mistakes Loki could have made."

Thor cleared his thin throat and Heimdoll was snapped out of her appraising of Harry.

"Oh," she squeaked, glancing at Thor. "I do apologize…Harry, where are my manners, I tend to get a bit carried away in my work. Let me introduce myself, as you have guessed no doubt, my name is Heimdoll, and I will be your teacher for the next few years."

"Pleasure to meet you," said Harry, bowing his head awkwardly.

"The pleasure is mine, I assure you," said Heimdoll. "It's been a _very_ long time since the galaxy has seen one of your kind walking amongst the stars. I'm rather eager to see what you can do with that highly evolved mind of yours."

"So am I," quipped Harry uncomfortably.

"Good, good," said Heimdoll, "now if you will excuse Thor and I for about fifteen minutes or so," she grabbed the Supreme Commander of the Asgard Fleet by the hand and pulled him ungracefully out of the room, "Thor and I need to discuss certain matters of mutual interest."

Harry frowned as the door closed behind the two Asgard, and he wondered belatedly if relationships between the two sexes amongst the Asgard were much the same as between the human sexes.

The next day Harry had barely time to arrange his austere living quarters in the underwater lab complex which he begun to simply call 'Seaworld' (highly unoriginal but simple), before he was summoned by Heimdoll to discuss his schooling. He navigated the complex corridors of Seaworld by means of an Asgard jewel device, which he wore on his waist. He merely told it he wanted to go to Heimdoll and somehow the jewel device had accessed his retina and overlaid a holographic map of where he had to go; it was something that only Harry could see.

Another thing Harry found odd was the lack of other Asgard in the large complex, and now that he thought about it, he had not seen any other Asgard on Thor's ship either. There was only one answer he could think of to this, Asgard ships and places relied heavily on their computers to do most of the work a crew would. Harry recalled reading from the database that there were actually quite few Asgard in actual cloned bodies walking around, there were only enough to sustain their civilization, while the rest were kept in a hibernation by storing their consciousnesses. Harry supposed it was one way to stop the effect of genetic degradation in the Asgard genome.

Speaking of genetics, before Heimdoll allowed Harry to sleep that night, true to her word she gave Harry's genome a genetic examination, and she corrected what she considered 'flaws' in Loki's work by exposing Harry to a gentle red light that enveloped his body. Harry thought it was weird to think that she was rearranging his chromosomes while he merely stood there.

When Harry entered the main room he had appeared in with Thor again (it was a room Heimdoll simply called the laboratory), it was to find Heimdoll eagerly bouncing on her tiny gray feet.

"Greetings Harry," said Heimdoll in her matronly voice. "I see you're still wearing the…what did you call it?"

"Chromesuit," answered Harry. He didn't have the skill as yet to replicate other clothing from the Asgard computer, and he had to admit, he liked the feeling of it and it would be eminently practical to wear when he explored the galaxy through the Stargate.

"Ah, yes, chromesuit, it is a marvelous piece of engineering," said Heimdoll. "I've never had the occasion to use them myself, but it will serve you well. Now," she walked over to a pedestal near the large window with the underwater aquarium-like view. There was a whoosh of transport and a chair winked into existence a few feet in front of the pedestal, a moment later a 'C' shaped console winked existence around it. "Take a seat Harry."

Harry walked forward a bit nervously and took the seat surrounded by the console. He looked, but saw there was no control outlines as yet on the large console around him.

"Before we begin Harry I just want to give you a general outline of what I have prepared for you," said Heimdoll. "The first thing you have to learn and master completely before we even begin with other subjects is language. Or more specifically, three languages…Asgard, Ancient, and Goa'uld."

"Why?" asked Harry curiously.

"You must master Asgard, because it will be impossible for me to teach you physics and the other sciences, as English is far too simplistic and you can't possibly describe some spatial and time phenomena in English because of their complexity, the same goes for mathematics. Secondly, you must master Ancient, because it's the only way for you to truly read and understand the sections of the Ancients Repository that the Asgard have in our possession; it is from this that you will learn of and master your powers. And finally, you must learn Goa'uld because it's best to understand the language of the enemy, then you can know your enemy and then you can truly fight them; because it will be what you must do if you want to keep Earth safe."

"I will also teach you of the Stargate and its secrets, you will learn the gate addresses, you will learn how to pilot a starship or any type of smaller vessel that you might encounter." Heimdoll trailed off at that point.

"Is that it?" asked Harry dubiously.

"Somewhat," Heimdoll temporized. "You will perhaps find other tangents of study while I teach you, and you will be given time to explore these. This will most assuredly happen as you start to learn from the Ancients Repository. I also advice you to engage in daily calisthenics so that fine example of a male human body will not deteriorate." Harry felt his face flush at that remark.

Harry looked troubled after a while and Heimdoll noticed, "Is something wrong?"

"I don't want to appear ungrateful for your time and teaching," said Harry carefully. "But aren't you also busy with your own research?"

"Thank you for your concern, but it is unnecessary," said Heimdoll patiently, "my experiments have my constant attention while I am teaching you. And as I said yesterday, the Asgard are also gaining out of this exchange. We have never studied a human so far along the evolutionary line. So…shall we begin?"

Harry nodded sitting up slightly straighter as the lights dimmed slightly and a large holographic image appeared against the backdrop of the window. On it was displayed what looked like a weird 'R'.

"We will start with the Asgard alphabet…"

_A/N: I won't really delve much into Harry's education with Heimdoll. It will be revealed as the story goes on. So several years will pass between Chapter Three and Four._**A/N: Some scenes are taken directly from Stargate SG1 but modified where appropriate due to the presence of Harry**


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter Four – Earth's Last Hope**

_Eight years later…_

On Earth, in a continent that it's inhabitants call North America; there is a very special mountain called Cheyenne and next to it is the quaint town of Colorado Springs. This mountain is unique; for it is used by the American Air Force to house and operate what they call NORAD. Located in an underground complex and needing perhaps eleven floors of space, it is the nexus by which the space and air defense of the United States of America is coordinated. During the era of the Cold War, this was where the Americans would duel Soviet Russia if it ever came down to a nuclear weapon slugging contest. Of course, with the end of the Cold War, NORAD had to shift its focus somewhat, due to the fact that it was ever unlikely to have a nuclear war with Russia, the money used for the site had to be shifted to other things.

If an accountant were to look at the where the money was going, he would say that for some reason NORAD had become extremely cost-effective and was only using a quarter of its budget, from its equivalent running costs during the height of the Cold War. But what the accountant didn't know was that money was being expertly funneled through numerous other loops in the bureaucratic chain all the way back to another branch of the military, which was ironically, housed right underneath NORAD.

This branch of the military was highly secret. So secret were it's comings and goings that only the base commander, his second in command, and the President of the United States knew the whole picture of what was happening here. This place was known as the SGC, or Stargate Command.

A squadron of forty-eight highly trained and specialized men and women made up the majority of the SGC. It was their job to, in teams of four, go through the Stargate, scout and recon any reachable planet, search and retrieve technology wherever possible (with the permission of the owners of the technology only, if they were still around) and defend Earth in any way they can from the Goa'uld. They were backed up with a company of the best soldiers in the United States, who all came from either Army Rangers or the Marine Core.

But the SGC was not just a military outfit, numerous civilian specialists, such as physicists, archeologists, psychologists, and medical research professionals walked in its top-secret halls doing research on new technologies brought back through the Stargate.

The Stargate itself was housed at the base of a former nuclear missile silo, giant superconductors where clamped and coiled onto the circular frame of the obsidian colored Stargate to provide it power as it was suspended somewhat off the floor. A grid ramp was constructed to allow easy access to the gate for maintenance crews working on the conductors and military personnel going through the gate itself to other worlds.

Directly facing the embarkation ramp was a large thick armored windowpane, and beyond it was a scene almost directly out of a Star Wars movie. Banks of computers and panels and keyboards dotted the room and the whirring of the machinery produced a constant hum.

However, those in the control room, as it was called, was not involved in any crisis or departing or arriving SG team, they were watching the ceremony in the embarkation room. A portion of the base personnel had donned their formal blue Air Force uniforms for the occasion and they were present in the embarkation room in rank and file, facing the Stargate.

On the embarkation ramp a formal dais had been placed, and standing behind it, was a portly bald Air Force Major General, judging by the two stars on his rank shoulder boards. He was named George Hammond, and he was the commander of the Cheyenne Mountain Complex. Standing next to him was a shorter man in civilian clothes; a formal suit and tie, neatly done black hair, whom looked in his fifties.

And standing along the embarkation ramp, parallel to the edge of the ramp was the flagship team of the SGC, aptly designated SG-1, and by their prominent position it was obvious they were the subject of today's ceremony. The four members of SG-1 were actually rather unorthodox in appearance, not purely the spit and shine of military sleekness at least. The first two closest to the dais were clearly part of the Air Force. First, was Colonel Jack O'Neill, a former Special Forces veteran, and fighter pilot. He was the eldest in appearance, in his early fourties, his hair going slightly gray around his temples. He had the haggard look of a tried and true soldier.

Second, was Captain Samantha Carter, a short haired dark blonde woman with an overall beauty that belied her experience as a fighter pilot in the Gulf War, and if anyone was to doubt her intelligence, well her astrophysics degree would shut them up pretty quickly. The two civilians were another matter entirely though.

The taller of the two men had dark skin, and cut a supremely imposing figure and face, and was strongly muscled. He wore unmarked blue fatigues and regulation boots, as he really didn't have a military rank, on this planet at least. His name was Teal'C, the former First Prime Jaffa warrior of the defeated Goa'uld Apophis. His golden encrusted tattoo on his forehead bearing the mark of Apophis would forever mark him a former slave to the Goa'uld. He was forced from puberty to be an incubator for the larval form of the Goa'uld, and his and other Jaffa immune systems degraded by genetic engineering, they were totally reliant on the Goa'uld parasite for protection from infection. It was this slavery that Teal'C had vowed to somehow break.

And the final member of SG-1, the most unassuming as well, was Dr Daniel Jackson. He wore a jacket and tie casually, and had parted brown hair and hazel eyes framed by glasses. His doctorate was in Archeology and it had been his breakthrough in researching the Stargate that had deciphered the gate system. He spoke dozens of languages and had a passion for the past. His integrity and values were as set in stone and he had the gift of looking at the larger picture of any decision. But at the moment his attention was wavering, as General Hammond was halfway through the rather boring ceremony that would promote Samantha to the rank of Major and also for the SGC to receive a unit commendation from the President.

Of course, the President was not there, he had sent the Secretary of Defense in his stead, who was currently looking like a kid in candy store.

"…you have fought valiantly, you have sacrificed for each other, for this country, for this planet," continued General Hammond. "To honor the men and women of the SGC, I present to you Arthur Simms, Secretary of Defense of the United States of America." The General nodded to the Secretary on his right and Arthur Simms took the dais, looking solemnly at the assembled ranks.

"Since the re-inception of this program, I have eagerly awaited every word of every mission report stemming from this base, like a wide-eyed child waiting for his next bed time story," he said with a smile. "But actually being here, and seeing your faces and this Stargate here behind me," he couldn't help giving it a quick backward glance, "it is sometimes really easy to forget that it all really is happening."

"The President regrets not being able to be here, but I'm glad because it give me the opportunity to congratulate you on recently defeating a formidable enemy, and rescuing SG-1, captured in the line of duty. You risk your lives every day, in a way more dangerous and fantastic than any of us could ever dream. Understand that I represent every person of this great nation, when I salute your ongoing heroic struggle. You should be proud." Simms nodded at the assembled SGC and vacated the dais. General Hammond took his place.

"Before we finish today, I have one other small bit of business, please come to attention," ordered Hammond.

The assembled SGC snapped their posture ramrod straight. Daniel and Teal'C only straightened their heads in response. Hammond pulled a page from the dais and began reading it.

"From the vice-Chief of Staff of the Air Force, in recognition of Captain Samantha Carter's outstanding work…" the said Captain Carter snapped her head to the General at that in surprise and her eyes widened. Daniel had to suppress a grin, they wanted to make it a surprise for Sam and it had worked… "I hereby authorize her immediate promotion to the rank of Major…" Jack on the other hand couldn't keep the grin off his face… "Captain, step forward."

Samantha looked for a moment if she checking to make sure reality was reality and they hadn't been sucked into a blackhole through the Stargate. When she was sure she walked up the ramp and stood next to General Hammond with wide eyes, he launched into a speech about responsibility as he removed her Captain's bars from her shoulders and an enlisted Sergeant came forward bearing her Major Oak Leaves to replace them with. The General did one shoulder while Jack came forward and did the other. There was polite clapping and Samantha was practically beaming as she returned to her position.

Hammond returned to the dais and said, "In closing, Major Carter's supervisor, Colonel O'Neill would like to say a few words." There was clapping again and Jack took the dais as Hammond made room for him. Jack smirked to the ranks knowingly and said, "Normally, I'm a man of very few words…"

White light enveloped Jack's form in that instant and there was a _whoosh _and flash…and he was gone. Leaving a very confused SGC in his wake…

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"Thor, are you sure this is wise," said Harry Potter, as he stood next to the control throne in which the diminutive Asgard was sitting. They were both waiting on the bridge of Thor's ship; it was a high cavernous room, with multiple transparent platforms and numerous curved control pedestals, but what was most spectacular about the bridge and Harry spent most of his time here, was the fact that it almost seemed as if the bridge was open to space, of course it was merely a real time display of the surrounding space, but the view was spectacular. Harry looked exactly the same as he done when he started to learn under Heimdoll at Seaworld. This was due to the Asgard retarding of his natural ageing process, since Loki had artificially aged him, Thor wanted to make sure that Harry had a full lifespan. He still wore the chromesuit, but the one he was wearing was the fifteenth he had gone through.

_Bloody Staff weapons_, he thought to himself.

"It will be telling to see his response, and it will be the standard by which I judge whether they have matured enough to have contact with the Asgard and with you, Harry," said Thor.

"I have observed them enough to my own satisfaction, Thor," said Harry archly.

"You have only observed their best in action," argued Thor. "The SGC is only a small part of your world's political structure. We will see how the negotiations fare and move from there."

"Very well, but I think it's a bad idea to just pluck O'Neill out of the SGC, they'll rightly view it at first as a hostile act," opinioned Harry.

"I expect them too," said Thor. "But I wish to see how fast they can restrain themselves." Thor looked forward and Harry felt him mentally reach out to the ships computer. A few moments later, a holographic screen appeared to show the view of small isolation room, with a nice big window into space, and through it Earth could be seen. The isolation room is what the Asgard uses when they wanted to positively influence a member of a primitive society. The room could change its appearance into any of the Norse God's locations, such as Valhalla and the like and Thor had in the past appeared to many civilizations in a holographic form of a burly Viking God. But for this occasion it was left as it truly was and there was a flash of light and a distant whooshing sound and Colonel Jack O'Neill appeared in the room.

Harry was amused to note that he was in his formal Air Force uniform and when O'Neill said, "…and in conclusion I'd like to say…" and it was clear that Thor had beamed the Colonel out at a rather in-opportune time. O'Neill was facing away from the visual sensor and he lowered his arms and looked out the window at the view he was seeing in astonishment, then after a few moments of looking at the Earth, he turned around with an expression on his face that was curious, astonished and guarded at the same time.

"Most intriguing," said Thor, "if I was to do that to any human a mere generation ago, they would be frightened out of their wits."

"His reaction was better than mine, though I think the fact that he is not restrained helps somewhat," observed Harry dryly.

"Indeed," said Thor, his alien mouth twitching. O'Neill walked slowly forward towards the sensor, staring at the strange architecture around him. He experimentally jumped up and down, as if testing the artificial gravity and examined the lights on the floor and the ceiling, apparently looking for a conceivable way out. As O'Neill approached closer to the throne in the room itself, Thor said, "I must go, come yourself when I call." There was a flash and Thor disappeared from the throne on the bridge and reappeared on the throne in the isolation room.

Harry saw O'Neill spinning to face the throne as the white light coalesced and dimmed to show Thor sitting calmly in front of the Air Force Colonel.

"Greetings, Jack O'Neill," said Thor.

O'Neill frowned warily at the Asgard. "Greetings," he said quickly, unsure of himself. "Have we met?"

"I am Thor," said the Asgard simply in reply. O'Neill looked surprised for a moment and then turned around to look through the window. "I apologize for taking you by surprise but I have come on a most urgent matter."

O'Neill's wonder was apparently too much for him though and he kept staring out the window, and said, "We're in orbit around Earth, right?"

"Yes," answered Thor patiently, though Harry could hear the slight inflection of irritation in the Asgard's voice.

"You know, we have satellites and telescopes and stuff, that can see things like spaceships," said O'Neill dryly.

"Our ships have never been detected in orbit around Earth before," pointed out Thor. That brought O'Neill up short and he hummed in thought. He turned around and regarded Thor for a moment, "Ah, sorry, you were going to say something. A matter of great importance."

"We received word of what transpired between your people and Goa'uld named Hathor," said Thor immediately, getting straight into it.

"She had it coming," said O'Neill stridently.

"As a result, the Goa'uld System Lords have turned their attention towards you," said Thor sounding neither accusatory nor supportive in his tone.

"What? For killing Hathor?" said O'Neill, astonished. "They should be thanking us. She was planning to overthrow them, you know."

"Her intentions are irrelevant," said Thor dismissively. "Earth has once again proven that it can be a formidable threat to the Goa'uld."

"Oh, now, we're a threat to them," said O'Neill sarcastically.

"They have decided that it is a concern to be dealt with," said Thor, ignoring it. "The System Lords are capable of launching an assault one hundred times more powerful than what you have previously withstood at the hands of Apophis."

"OK," said O'Neill, obviously stymied at the thought of it. "That could be a problem."

"The Asgard agree," said Thor. "I have come to offer our assistance."

As Harry expected, O'Neill was all smiles again and impressed, "That would be appreciated, I've seen your work, it's great!"

"The vast majority of Asgard fleet is unavailable," said Thor, shooting down O'Neill apparent hope.

"Oh," he said, and ummed in thought. "So what did you have in mind?"

"With your permission," said Thor. "The Asgard will attempt to negotiate with the Goa'uld System Lords to include Earth in the Protected Planets Treaty."

"That's a good thing, right?"

"It would prevent this attack," said Thor, obviously.

"I'll be honest with you," said O'Neill bluntly after a moment, "I'd rather have a few of your ships here…a few of these babies and we could…" He trailed off at seeing the penetrating stare of Thor and visibly wilted, "We could try the negotiating thing."

"I will contact the System Lords," said Thor. "But before you can return to Earth I am sending along with you someone who will act as the representative of the Asgard to Earth. And if the negotiations with the Goa'uld conclude successfully he will continue to do so on a permanent basis."

"Good," said O'Neill, bouncing on the balls of his feet and clapping his hands. "Where is he?"

Harry took that as his cue and there was flash of light as he was teleported to stand next to Thor in the isolation room. It clearly took O'Neill by surprise that Harry was human.

"Hello, Colonel," said Harry holding out his hand. "My name is Tyr, or if you prefer to use my Earth name, Harry, would do." O'Neill shook my hand and he surveyed the skintight chromesuit I was wearing.

"Nice getup," he said bluntly.

"I've grown used to it," Harry shrugged. "The Asgard are a wonderful people but they don't have much use for clothes."

"So you're from Earth?" asked O'Neill curiously.

"I was born here," confirmed Harry. "But explanations and life stories can wait, we both have a home planet to save." He turned to Thor, "see you around Thor?" The Asgard nodded and disappeared in a flash. Harry turned to O'Neill. "Going down!" There was a flash and both men disappeared as well.

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Harry and O'Neill reappeared right at the base of the Stargate, the same spot from where the Colonel had been taken. Jack noticed that the dais had been removed and red lights were flashing everywhere, no doubt his disappearance had caused an emergency. Those members of the Security Force, or SFs, that were in the gate room flinched at the bright light and not a moment later pistols and assault rifles were aimed and brought to bear. Jack jumped in front of Harry raising his arms in warning shouting, "Stand down! Stand down!"

The SF's heeded the order after a few moments and lowered their weapons but kept them poised.

"Colonel O'Neill!" came another shout, this time from General Hammond, who strode into the gate room with the rest of SG-1 in tow. Harry moved out from behind O'Neill and surveyed the initial reactions of the odd group of people to him. Teal'C merely raised an eyebrow at Harry's appearance and surveyed him as a potential enemy, Harry expected no less. Dr Jackson looked in curiosity and the now Major Samantha Carter narrowed her eyes cautiously.

"General," said O'Neill, addressing Hammond. "I'd like you to meet, Harry, he's a…" O'Neill trailed off.

"…representative of the Asgard," said Harry with a sigh.

"Oh yeah, he and Thor came in an Asgard ship that's in orbit around Earth," explained O'Neill. "That's where I've been for the past few minutes. I think we need to hold an emergency briefing."

Hammond stared at Harry in thought for a few moments.

"Two SFs will keep him company for the moment," said Hammond and Harry saw two burly looking men in camouflage fatigues walk up to flank him. "Briefing Room," ordered Hammond and turned to walk.

Thirty minutes later, Hammond, SG-1, and Harry were seated at the conference table of the briefing room overlooking the gate room from high above. O'Neill repeated everything Thor told him and then the questions for Harry began.

"Now," said General Hammond. "Thor stated that you, Harry, are to be the Asgard representative. Yet, you claim Earth as your homeworld…" He trailed off, obviously awaiting elaboration from Harry.

"I will give a brief explanation, to satisfy all questions, especially Major Carter's," said Harry, he could see she was absolutely bursting with questions from all the emotions she was projecting and that Harry could sense. "I'm sure you've heard all about alien abduction stories?"

"Aren't all those hoaxes or something, you know, stuff that tabloids print?" asked O'Neill.

"From my point of view, Colonel O'Neill," said Harry dryly. "It's no hoax, I was abducted right out of my home in England, by an alien…criminal, I suppose is the closest word for it. He had detected that my genome was…unusual for a normal human, and wanted to experiment on me for his own ends."

"How was you genome unusual?" asked Carter with a frown.

"That is not relevant for the moment," said Harry with finality. "I was held captive and experimented on for over a week in Earth orbit, until Thor came along, as he was hunting the criminal for crimes against the Asgard. Thor and my abductor played cat and mouse for six months throughout the galaxy, all the while I was being subjected to scans and experiments I won't go into. When I was finally rescued by Thor, he gave me a choice; as I had been away from Earth for too long to reintegrate into a normal way of life, and not to mention what my abductor had done to me, I decided to remain amongst the Asgard and learn from them. I also wanted to do something about the Goa'uld of course."

"You've fought the Goa'uld?" asked a surprised O'Neill.

"Oh yes," said Harry with a grin, turning to look at Teal'C. "Despite the Asgard's policy of non-aggression against the Goa'uld, I am somewhat of a free agent. And it's me you should thank for the two years of silence from the Stargate since the death of Ra, after you foolishly left it with enough dormant charge in it for Apophis to eventually walk through."

"So you're saying that the gate retains enough energy from the last outgoing wormhole, enough for another wormhole to connect, even after its removed from a power source?" asked Carter.

Harry only nodded, and turned to address Teal'C, "It's good to see you again, Teal'C."

"Have we met?" asked Teal'C in a monotone, raising an eyebrow.

"Oh yes, but you know me, differently," said Harry with a grin, and he blinked, and they blinked and they saw not Harry sitting there any more. In his place sat a man with the same body build, as Harry, but his face was now narrow and angular, with long blonde hair, and intense blue eyes. He wore elaborately styled black-segmented armor that was made of some sort of obsidian material that seemed to suck in all light into a void; only his lower abdomen and arms were left unprotected.

Teal'C, Harry knew, was never a person to get phased by anything, but in this occasion he was sure that the former First Prime would make an exception. Teal'C gasped and his eyes widened and he said, "Tyr?" Harry nodded, they blinked again, and Harry was back to his relatively normal appearance.

"Teal'C?" asked General Hammond, trying not to look amazed by what he just saw.

"Tyr is a formidable warrior, General Hammond," said Teal'C, bowing his head in respect to Harry. "He has fought many System Lords, and most especially was a thorn in Apophis's side. He in fact, had an opportunity to kill me some years ago, but did not take it."

"I could see your reticence in your support of the Goa'uld," said Harry with a grin. "I do not take life unless it is absolutely necessary. And I attacked Apophis most because his domain was the closest to Earth."

"Tyr…" murmured Dr Jackson in thought, everyone turned to look at him. "Well…if what you're saying is true it's an appropriate name…Tyr, in Norse mythology was the god of honorable battle, kingship and justice."

"Thor said I had to have an Asgard name," shrugged Harry nonchalantly.

"What did you do to change your appearance?" asked Major Carter next, looking eager.

"What the eyes see, the ears hear, the mind believes," said Harry with a vague grin.

"It's an illusion?"

"You are clever, yes, it's an illusion," conceded Harry with a sigh. "But now that I have established my bona fides. Let's get back to the matter at hand, the treaty negotiations. You have questions General?"

"Yes," said the General, looking at a notepad in front of him. "Why would the Goa'uld agree to any treaty in first place?"

"The Goa'uld, while powerful, are not meanest bully on the playground, the Asgard are centuries ahead of them, they fear the Asgard, as simple as that," explained Harry.

"Plus, I think the Asgard will offer them something in return," opinioned Daniel Jackson. "That's generally the way negotiations work."

"What if this summit fails?" asked General Hammond.

"As much as I hate to say it, this is the only option the Asgard can offer you General Hammond," said Harry with a sigh. "If this summit fails then Earth will be attacked and there will be no way we can resist such an assault."

"Well, the President is wondering how confident we are in trusting the Asgard," said the General in turn. "Can we trust them?"

"The Asgard are a people of their word, General," said Harry with conviction. "If they say they will do something, then they do it."

"The Tok'Ra trust them," said Major Carter. The Tok'Ra were, of course, a group of Goa'uld fanatically opposed to the way of life of the System Lords. They are symbiotes that live in harmony with their human hosts, and both share consciousness, knowledge and experience equally. Unlike the normal Goa'uld who ruthlessly suppress the human host and keep them in a prison within their own minds. Major Carter herself, was for a time, host to a Tok'Ra symbiote known as Jolinar and she still possessed a great deal of memories and knowledge from that symbiote.

"They helped Jack when he had the Ancient's language downloaded into his brain," said Dr Jackson bluntly.

"Got to love 'em for that," said O'Neill with a wry grin.

"Ah yes," said Harry with a frown of remembrance. "I recall reading the Asgard report of that incident. Really, O'Neill, as a rule I do not stick my head in strange alien devices, try not to do the same next time."

"There won't be a next time for me," said O'Neill with a grin. "I don't want to turn into Mr Ancient zombie again."

"But we don't know anything of the politics out there," said Hammond next, ignoring his 2IC's banter. "Do the Asgard really have our best interests at heart?"

"They do General," said Harry with a nod. "They see us eventually taking a place in the Great Alliance as the Fifth Race, hence it's in their own interest to help us survive. Though you must remember that the Asgard are an intergalactic power, they have other concerns far more problematic and bigger than the Goa'uld. It's the reason why the only recourse available to deal with the situation is through negotiation."

It was at this moment that a bright light appeared in the room, there was a _whoosh_ of an Asgard transporter and it deposited Thor into the room. General Hammond was of course, startled by event and Major Carter looked fascinated seeing it in action. O'Neill took it upon himself to make introductions, Harry knew that Thor knew who was who already by the look of slight boredom on the face of the Asgard, but O'Neill was oblivious to it. After introductions were done Thor spoke directly to O'Neill.

"The System Lords have agreed to negotiate," stated Thor succinctly.

"That's good news," said O'Neill.

"They will arrive in four days."

"Here?" said O'Neill astonished, pointing a finger down.

"It is customary for the negotiations to take place on the planet in question," explained Thor. "Three representatives of the System Lords will arrive via Stargate. You must be prepared to speak on behalf of all the inhabitants of Earth."

"Ummm, maybe not me, personally…" stammered O'Neill, but Thor continued.

"We have chosen you O'Neill, to represent your planet at the proceedings."

"Ah, you see, that could be a mistake," said O'Neill dubiously, he turned to stare at Dr Jackson. "Daniel is a very educated and articulate man, well versed in all the languages…" Thor interrupted him.

"You have led your people into the Galaxy through the Stargate, you are our choice O'Neill. Further preparations and instructions will be given through Harry from now on."

Thor transported himself back to his ship immediately afterward.

"Well," said O'Neill dryly, "there you go. Is Thor always like that?" he directed towards Harry.

"What? Oh, you mean, straight to the point, direct, no small talk, no hello, no goodbye," said Harry sarcastically with a grin. "Yeah, that's him. I think at some point the Asgard decided to dispense with the small niceties of social interaction, wastes too much time according to them. But we now have work to do, shall we begin."

The next day a general briefing was given to all key members of the SGC, and the briefing room was near filled to the brim. The lights were dimmed and doors and windows closed. Over the main window facing the gate room a projector screen had been pulled and it was displaying various slides that had been prepared by Dr Jackson. Harry had informed him of the identity of the three System Lords that were coming for the treaty negotiations and he had in less than an hour gathered all a manner of ancient references to these specific Goa'uld's.

"Chronos was one of the earliest Greek gods," stated Daniel to the darkened void of the briefing room. "One of twelve titans that rose to domination. He was god of fate and eventually became father to Zeus, Hera, Poseidon and Hades. Now this last relationship may indicate a connection to the Goa'uld named Sokar."

"Chronos is the most influential of the System Lords," said Teal'C, looking in Harry's opinion quite distracted. "It was he, who originally banished Sokar. Chronos was also a mortal enemy of Apophis."

"Which may indicate why the System Lords did not join in Apophis's attack on Earth," concluded Daniel.

"The System Lords reluctantly band together to defend Goa'uld territory against outside threats such as the Asgard and the Ritu," said Teal'C with a frown on his face. "However, they still battle amongst themselves for control over their individual domains." Daniel nodded.

"The second System Lord representative is…Yu," said Daniel, unfortunately he was staring at O'Neill when he said it. O'Neill was rather bored and had sat up abruptly. Harry snickered under his hand.

"Me?" said O'Neill.

"Yu is the name of the Goa'uld," said Daniel patiently.

"Ah, sorry," said O'Neill looking sheepish.

"Also known as Yu the Great," continued Daniel turning to walk towards the projection screen. "He did not assume the role of a god per se, but may have been one of China's earliest emperors." The slide changed. "Legend says he possessed great mythic powers and sprang into the world from a dragons body. Ancient scrolls suggest he founded the first dynasty and was responsible for a number of advances that came about under harsh rule. However, it should be noted that Yu did account for a number of notable positive influences."

"Thank you," mumbled O'Neill, who couldn't resist the pun. Daniel paused in his lecture and gave Jack a sharp look. "Sorry."

"According to Harry and Thor, Yu is the most likely to favor this treaty as his interests no longer reside in this area of the galaxy."

"And the third Goa'uld, Dr Jackson?" asked Hammond. Daniel sighed and the slide changed from an ancient color drawing of Yu, to a photo of an ancient relief sculpture of a woman wearing an elaborate shawl over her head.

"Another one we haven't met but have a certain familiarity with," said Daniel, his mouth thinning. "For the those in the room who don't know, Nirtii is the Goa'uld who wiped out all but one survivor of P8X-987, along with four members of the SGC in attempt to destroy the Earth Stargate. Harry saw Major Carter and the SGC Chief Medical Officer Dr Janet Frasier exchange dark looks. "Little is known about Nirtii from Earth's persective, in early Hindu references she was the destructive goddess of darkness."

Major Carter closed the briefing folder on her lap, and Harry saw how displeased she was. "So we're just gonna let these Goa'uld walk in here?" she asked staring at the General.

"There are a number of aspects of this situation I am not comfortable with, Major Carter," said Hammond and turned to Daniel. "Thank you Dr Jackson." The lights came on and the projector shut down and the screen retracted up into the ceiling, revealing the gate room again. Hammond stood and turned to the face the assembled personnel.

"Teal'C, I originally had in mind for you to be liaison to the Goa'uld, but Harry suggested you would more productive assisting Major Castleman in base security," stated General Hammond, giving a glance at Harry; who was standing to one side of the room, his chromesuit glistening in the light and looking as if it was almost alive.

"Thank you for reconsidering, General Hammond," said Teal'C giving Harry a respectful look of thanks. Harry slightly inclined his head in acknowledgement. He knew that Teal'C would rather take a staff blast than cater to the petty needs of the Goa'uld.

"Dr Jackson, therefore it falls to you," said Hammond.

"Very well," said Daniel, looking resigned.

"According to Harry, treaty laws will not allow any weapons in this facility for the duration of the summit…"

"Whoah…sir," said O'Neill, interrupting the General. "That doesn't sound wise."

"General," said Harry, speaking up for the first time. "If I may address this concern?" Hammond nodded.

"The purpose of no weapons at the summit is quite obvious and I don't need to explain it," said Harry solemnly. "But I'm sure you think that the Goa'uld can not be trusted to honor that law as well. I will personally ensure that there are no weapons on their person the instant they step through the Stargate."

"I don't understand," said Daniel with a confused frown, "they won't let you do a physical search."

"I just need a line of sight, that's all," said Harry in finality and looked away towards the Stargate.

"In addition," continued the General, "the base will be completely sealed off from the surface, and the Secretary of Defense will be staying to represent the President. Storage room 12A on level thirteen will be converted into a meeting room for security reasons. You've all received folders that include your individual assignments and preparation instructions as layed out by the Asgard. There's a lot of work to do people, and not much time. Dismissed."

The briefing room emptied steadily except for Daniel, who approached Harry a bit nervously. Harry had kept his gaze out towards the Stargate, seemingly in deep thought.

"Harry?"

"Yes, Dr Jackson?" he turned his penetrating emerald eyes towards the archeologist.

"I was wondering if you would like the SGC to contact your family?" said Daniel. "I'm sure there must be missing persons reports on you in England that we can find and we can trace their whereabouts." Harry sighed, wondering how he could tactfully reply to this.

"I'm sure that would be possible," said Harry with a rueful grin. "But my parents were murdered when I was one, and I was sent to live with…abusive relatives. So, in a way," Harry chuckled mirthlessly, "my alien kidnapper actually rescued me. You will also find that no missing person reports were filed, due to the fact that my relatives never thought me missing."

"I don't understand, how's that possible?"

"Because my abductor cloned me, Dr Jackson, and left my clone in place of me, so…thank you for your concern and offer, but it is not needed. I am a happy citizen of the galaxy and while I consider Earth with fondness and would defend her with my life, the saying goes, home is where the heart is." Harry's eyes twinkled and he patted Daniel on the shoulder and walked out of the briefing room.


	5. Chapter 5

_**Chapter Five – The Summit**_

Alarm klaxons resounded through the control room and Harry surveyed the Stargate through the glass shield ahead of him, as its inner wheel spun and began locking in the co-ordinate chevrons. General Hammond and the rest of SG-1 were standing around him and also waiting for the Stargate to finish. The General, O'Neill, and Samantha Carter were all looking the picture or finely pressed military in the formal blue uniform.

"Here we go people," said General Hammond with a grim look toward the Stargate.

"It's hard to believe they are actually coming _here_," said Harry with a deep sigh.

"What do you mean?" asked Sam.

"I have hunted Chronos and Nirtii for a long time," he said with a grin. "But finding out exactly where they are located in their domains at any one time is quite difficult, as they keep their movements secret. Not even the vaunted Tok'Ra intelligence network has information that up to date. And even if they had," Harry snorted bitterly, "they wouldn't share it as that would risk compromising their oh-so-precious intelligence gathering techniques. So it is ironic that I finally know where they are, and I can't do a thing to them."

"You assassinate Goa'uld's specifically?" said Daniel Jackson looking dubious.

"Of course, when I can," said Harry with a look that said it should obvious. "But, as I said, killing a System Lord is no easy feat. And I have only managed to achieve that once; I got lucky and took out Anuk-sun-amun, but another previously minor Goa'uld just rose up and took her place."

On that note the seventh chevron locked into place and a wormhole shifted into phase within the confines of the Stargate and exploded outward in the visual illusion of water and settled back into the familiar event horizon of the wormhole, again looking like a shimmering pool that settled on its side.

O'Neill led the way down into the gate room and Harry positioned himself to the right of the embarkation ramp while the General, O'Neill and Sam waited at the base. The wormhole remained open and silent for a tense half a minute. Harry rolled his eyes at this little intimidation tactic, it would be just like Chronos's style to stuff his arm into the event horizon and keep the wormhole engaged but make the members of the SGC sweat a little.

Finally, a tall figure emerged from the event horizon. Harry recognized the long graying hair and condescending smirk that Chronos seemed to keep on himself at all times. The System Lord was dressed in the manner of an ancient Greek king would; cape, fur, fancy leather armor.

_How easy it would be just to raise my hand and end it all_, thought a disgruntled Harry. But instead he focused and weaved a reality-altering matrix into his eyes and directed his gaze towards Chronos. To Harry's eyes the room was bathed with various colors of light, this was a perception of reality that went beyond the visible light spectrum and could see at any wavelength. Harry could not see anything amiss on Chronos, no concealed weaponry, no discernable energy emission, except for the Naquadah in his blood stream.

Next to emerge was a beautiful woman who had central Asiatic features, wearing a shawl over her head and an elaborate light blue dress with a bare midriff. Nirtii wore a condescending expression on her face as she surveyed the interior of the SGC. Harry's extra-sensory evaluation of the System _Lady_ as it were, was slightly confusing though. He thought he saw something on her left wrist but it was vague at best, it was a slight emission of energy on the tachyon energy range, but just as he tried to bring it into focus it was gone.

Beside Nirtii a Chinese man walked out wearing a traditional Ming dynasty clothes in red and green, but Yu showed similar results to Chronos.

Harry released the matrix and the room returned to normal. He turned to O'Neill and shook his head. O'Neill nodded that he understood and Harry walked from the gate room and re-entered the control room. He did not wish to tempt fate by remaining near Chronos; it would be bad enough having to tolerate his presence when the summit was on.

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_Two years earlier…_

The Stargate's inner wheel began to spin. The world it was located on was known as Sparta to its inhabitants, and as the name suggested it was populated by descendants of Ancient Greece. The Stargate was located a few kilometers outside the main city and it was settled in a small defensible valley with turreted walls surrounding it, from where anyone could fire upon attackers coming through the gate. Sparta itself was a world sporting a semi-arid climate and a blazing sun, with the result being that the dominant traits of the Spartans were black curly hair and very well tanned skin.

The seventh chevron locked and the Stargate exploded into life and eventually the event horizon calmed and only rippled occasionally.

Harry emerged from the gate, and had opened his mouth to deliver the ritual greeting in Attic Greek but he shut his mouth as his eyes comprehended what he saw around him and a feeling of dread passed though his spine and his stomach lurched.

The protective battlements around the Stargate were in ruins, smoke rose from the gashes in the walls and there were large sections of it that was completely destroyed and anyone was free to pass through. The large reinforced gate that allowed for authorized travelers to exit was gone. Harry instantly fell into a defensive posture, his hands raised, palms outward, ready for anything. When no attack came he broke into a run and sped out of the ring of battlements.

"No," he said aloud to himself. But denying what he saw was futile. Behind the battlements the ground was littered with dead Spartan warriors, dressed in only their black leather skirts and clutching their ornate swords, spears and bows, and from what he saw of the wounds, Goa'uld staff weapons inflicted them. There were also dead Jaffa, but they were few and far between; either killed by a well-marked arrow or impaled upon a flung spear.

Harry approached the closest dead Jaffa, and saw the mark of Chronos branded on its forehead. Anger welled up in him, as he had never known it before. He had to close his eyes and turn away from the mass of dead to control the emotion. He needed to know exactly what happened. With that in mind he picked up a staff weapon from one of the fallen Jaffa, and ran out of the valley. Harry tried to mentally prepare himself for the view of the city but it did little to help.

The smoke of fires rose in multiple columns from various destroyed buildings. The pattern of it suggested bombardment from space. Harry allowed a single tear to fall from his eyes and he broke into a run again and crossed the distance between the lip of the valley and the city outskirts.

The streets were filled with silence and death; not only of Spartan warriors but, men, women, and even a few children and Jaffa. It spoke of a systematic search and the subsequent slaughter of everyone; as the Goa'uld Chronos could have destroyed the city easily from space. What Chronos was searching for was the question now. But Harry had a more pressing need it seemed. He carefully walked through the streets to a specific place near the central palace. It was a modest cottage by all appearances, with solid white walls so typical of ancient Greek dwellings that made up the city.

Once Harry was inside the cottage he looked around for anyone who might still be alive. He found only the body of Evie, the servant of the man he was hoping would still be alive. She had taken a staff weapon blast directly into her stomach. And her eyes were still open and frozen in visible fear. Harry knelt next to her and closed her eyes, a terrible horror and sadness descending on his heart. He recited a blessing for the dead in Greek and grabbed a handful of gold coins that had fallen to the floor from a broken clay jar and placed one coin over each of her eyes. "May the boatman bear you swiftly across the river Styx with this payment." He had known Evie well, as it was she who had been charged with educating him in the Greek traditions.

"Harry…" came a weak voice… "is that you?"

Harry snapped to attention in a moment and found that the voice was coming from underneath an overturned table. He grabbed it and flung it away easily. Underneath lay a gravely injured man, his face matted in blood, his long gray hair was caked with it as well.

"I'm here, Ambrosius," said Harry with a worried frown as he stared at the thin white robes the man was wearing; which was wrinkled with dirt and bloodstains vividly visible. Harry could see no apparent blast or stabbing wounds but there was bruising on his forehead.

"You were tortured with a Goa'uld Hand Device, was it Chronos?"

"No," said Ambrosius weakly, "one of his immediate underlings. They came by a space ship, thus avoiding the protections you put within the Portal. He…" the old man coughed a few times and fresh blood marred the hand that he used to shield his mouth, "…was looking for the ship of the Ancients you found a year ago in the catacombs beneath the palace."

"And when he didn't find it…"

"…Chronos was very angry about it, he personally came down to interrogate me as to where it was. I tried to deny that I knew anything about it, but he was not convinced…" he coughed violently again, "and so he started to rain fire down on us from his space ship to coerce me."

"Oh, Ambrosius," sighed Harry, shaking his head. He knew the old man was too stubborn for his own good. "You could at least have told him a half-truth or anything that might…"

"No," said Ambrosius. "I would not give any clue to him, no matter how inconsequential, because eventually he'd have tracked it to you, and despite your power, there is a chance it would have fallen into his hands and then there would no hope for anyone, as Chronos would learn some of the secrets of the Ancient Ones…arrrggh." He grunted in pain.

Harry placed his hands on Ambrosius, one over his forehead and another over his heart, and he opened his mind and senses to the Universe; focusing his gaze on the aged body beneath his hands.

"You have internal bleeding and your heart is arrhythmic from the neural feedback of the Hand device," reported Harry, his face marred with a worried frown. "Your heart's rhythm I can restore but your bleeding is too extensive, I have to take you back to Seaworld for treatment."

"Very well," nodded Ambrosius. Harry closed his eyes and focused carefully and slowly on the transference of energy, channeling it from within him and around him. He guided the energy towards the heart…being careful not to send it in an unnatural direction; moving with the waning flow of life within the old man and finally…towards the heart… Harry heard a deep gasp from Ambrosius and a sigh of relief that showed he was successful.

"Feeling better?" asked Harry, shaking his head to get the cobwebs out of it.

"Somewhat," said the old man.

"I tried to relieve some of the pain of the bleeding for you as well, so don't be fooled, you're still in danger but at least you won't die on me while I get you to the Stargate," said Harry, he stood and gestured with his hand in an upward motion. Ambrosius was slowly lifted off the hard floor and hovered a few feet above the ground.

"Oh, Harry, do be a boy, and fetch my staff, I think the Jaffa chucked it somewhere in the corner," asked Ambrosius with a weary, tired grin. Harry looked to the corners of the room and saw the gnarled wooden staff on the floor; he made a grabbing motion with his hand and it flew towards his outstretched hand and he caught it expertly. He turned his focus on the hovering old man and willed his body to move forward. As they walked through the carnage filled streets, Harry distinctly heard Ambrosius mutter, "What am I going to tell my daughter?"

"The truth," said Harry simply. "We will tell her the truth."

Whatever the old man would have said in reply was drowned out by the sudden roar of a passing Goa'uld Death Glider; the curved craft swooped overhead and into the distance.

"Shit!" snarled Harry and walked faster, making sure guide Ambrosius without bumping him accidentally into any debris.

"That pilot will not have missed our presence," said Ambrosius.

"Which means the blasted mothership must still be in orbit," said Harry angrily, glaring upward at the blue sky. "How long ago did the attack take place?"

"Slightly more than a day," winced the old man.

"Then they will have a reception of Jaffa waiting for us at the Stargate, I knew I should have moved the ring transporter away from the gate."

Harry called to reality around him and within a few moments he and Ambrosius was shifted out of phase, effectively making them both invisible as they moved among the debris and bodies littering the streets. When Harry finally caught sight of the Stargate inside the valley, it was to find a contingent of twenty-four Jaffa guarding it; all of them standing on what remained of the ruined battlements. The Death Glider that had spotted them earlier now patrolled the sky around the gate. Harry and Ambrosius were prone against the lip of the valley despite their invisibility; it was best to play it safe.

"How are we going to get through that?" whispered Ambrosius.

"A frontal assault is not preferable, one of the Jaffa could get a call off to the mothership and I would be fighting a near constant battle because of that damn ring transporter," said Harry softly. The Glider came around for another pass and it gave Harry an idea. He turned his gaze to follow it and reached out with his mind towards that of the Jaffa pilot. It was extremely hard and draining to influence a mind at this distance but Harry managed to alter the perception of the hapless pilot. The results were rather apparent as the Death glider immediately commenced a strafing run on the surprised Jaffa on the ground. Orange bolts of energy walked among the Jaffa on the western battlement, sending bodies flying in every direction…and creating a large gap in the Jaffa perimeter.

The surviving Jaffa on the ground were too distracted by the sudden onslaught of the Death Glider to hear the near running footsteps of an invisible Harry bursting through a gap in the battlements. A single blow to the head from the butt end Harry's staff weapon easily knocked out the single Jaffa that had remained to guard the control panel of the Stargate. Now the tricky part came. He did not have the concentration to directly manipulate the Stargate with his mind and keep the pilot of the Death Glider distracting the remaining Jaffa. As such he would have to engage a subspace path the old fashioned way, so to speak, and that took time. But he had no choice.

He pressed the Orion glyph on the control panel and the Stargate began to whine as the inner wheel began to lock the coordinates into place. It was only by the time that the fifth glyph was locked in place that the nearest Jaffa noticed the activating Stargate. Harry saw it and had no choice but to send a blast of orange energy into the side of the large Jaffa who had been just a moment away from warning his colleagues. The seventh glyph locked into place and the Stargate roared to life in a burst of energy that settled to the familiar pool effect.

Harry slung Ambrosius over his shoulder; he let go of his concentration and as a result; freed the pilot's mind from his influence and broke the invisibility over themselves. Harry rushed through the event horizon and he perceived the disembodied, mind-blowing ride through the cosmos as usual…only to emerge seconds later onto the soft island ground of Seaworld.

He turned to face the open subspace path with a grim certainty and gestured with his hand toward the gate; mentally engaging a device he had installed in his home's Stargate. A blue energy shield sprang into existence over the mouth of the subspace path and not a few moments later the shield flared eight times before the gate finally shut down.

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_Present day…_

Harry was jarred out of his thoughts when Major Carter appeared next to him and tapped him on the shoulder.

"What can I do for you, Major?"

"Something's been bugging me ever since I met you," she declared with a frown.

"Oh?" said Harry with a lopsided grin and a raised eyebrow, inviting elaboration.

"Were you blended with a symbiote in the past?"

"Ah, I should have guessed you would be able to sense the naquadah in my blood," said Harry with a grin. "Yes, I was blended with a Tok'Ra symbiote named Jamilla for two years. I rescued her from Ra's imprisonment but her host was mortally wounded in the escape and I offered to become a temporary host until a new one could be found for her; but we enjoyed each other's company and learned so much from each other that we decided to remain blended for an extended period of time."

"Jamilla…" said Carter in deep thought, "it does ring a bell." Harry said nothing further but returned his gaze to the Stargate. "Oh, yes, I was curious, how did you scan for weapons on the System Lords?"

"I looked at them," said Harry cryptically with a grin and turned to walk away, leaving a confused astrophysicist in his wake.

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The summit room was quite nicely prepared in Harry's opinion, considering the limited amount of time that had been allocated to preparation. Flag staffs representing each of the System Lords, the Asgard and Earth (or Tau'ri in the Goa'uld language meaning the First Ones or First Humans) hung on each wall of the room, illuminated by lights fixed above them. The table was specifically designed for the event as well, it was shaped in the form of a pentagon with bright illumination from above and high backed leather chairs at four of the five sides (the empty fifth being for Thor, as he would transport down in his throne chair).

Harry had placed himself next to this fifth side, so that he was between Thor and O'Neill.

Nirtii, Chronos, Yu and O'Neill had already taken their seats and they were waiting for Thor to beam down.

"We're just…er…waiting for…" said O'Neill uncomfortably. There was flash of an Asgard transporter beam and Thor appeared. "And here he is…gang's all here. You all know each other, guess we can get started."

"The Asgard High Council extends its greetings to all of you and wishes to express its thanks for this opportunity to preserve the peace," began Thor.

"The Goa'uld System Lords are prepared to hear the Asgard proposal," stated Yu with the characteristic distorted voice of a Goa'uld. Harry had always wondered how that effect was achieved when he first heard it, many Jaffa and enslaved humans believed the distorted voice was a mystical power, but it was hardly that. It was caused simply by the symbiote pulling against the larynx and voice box of the host. The Tok'ra symbiotes did it only to distinguish to each other as to whom was speaking, host or symbiote, whereas the Goa'uld kept it going all the time unless subterfuge was needed.

"On'nek at ai, kree," said Nirtii, speaking in Goa'uld. Harry bristled internally with anger. Nirtii was supposed to speak in Tau'ri, but he couldn't correct her, as it was not his turn to speak. Thankfully, Chronos did so.

"Konakka as si mo," said Chronos, narrowing his eyes at Nirtii.

"Kona kree!" said Yu angrily, also berating Nirtii, bashing his fist against the table. "Kee na ori Asgard."

O'Neill stared at the three Goa'uld and then at Harry and Thor…Harry tried to catch O'Neill's eyes to telepathically stop him from speaking but the Colonel turned his head away and talked to Thor directly. "I thought we were going to speak the same language here."

Harry closed his eyes and sighed. _I knew I should have drilled the negotiation protocol into his skull telepathically_. Thor's small mouth distorted in a grimace.

Chronos stood angrily and cursed, "Ko nag!" and walked to the doors, banged them open and walked into the corridor. Nirtii and Yu rose from their seats, the latter giving O'Neill a withering glare and followed in Chronos's wake.

"What'd I say?" said Jack in confusion.

"You insulted them," said Thor, while Harry merely rubbed the bridge of his nose.

"How?"

"You spoke out of turn," said Harry with a sigh. "Did you read the negotiation protocol, Colonel?"

"I…uh…skimmed through it," said O'Neill uncomfortably. Harry gazed sharply at O'Neill. "Oh, come on, that was over six hundred pages long!"

"O'Neill, that was a rookie mistake," said Harry sharply. "If you had even read the first hundred pages you wouldn't have made it."

"Do not be too harsh, Harry," said Thor. "Even if O'Neill had not made the mistake, it would have ended soon anyway, rarely does a first session with the System Lords last beyond two minutes."

"But they were yelling at each other before I said a word," said O'Neill in his own defense.

"The System Lords have a very fragile relationship with one another," said Thor, "as do we with them."

"You mean they're always like that?" asked O'Neill incredulously.

"Pretty much," said Harry.

The conversation was interrupted by a worried looking Daniel Jackson walking into the room, "Excuse me, sorry for interrupting. But what just happened?"

"Apparently, we said hello, insulted each other, and broke for a recess," said O'Neill sarcastically. Then he turned back to Thor with a frown. "Can I ask you a question?" Thor nodded. "Why did you let the Goa'uld get that much power in the first place? If you've got the technology…" Harry felt his lips compress into a thin line. O'Neill had hit upon Harry's only bone of contention with the Asgard's decisions in the past.

"We are not proud of the fact that we have been forced to ignore the situation for as long as we have," said Thor solemnly. "But you must understand, there are other concerns for the Asgard. We have an enemy in our home galaxy that is far worse than the Goa'uld." Harry grimaced, _That's an understatement if there ever was one_.

"Worse?" asked Dr Jackson wearily.

"I cannot explain further," said Thor sadly. "For now we use what limited resources we can spare to enforce these treaties with the Goa'uld."

"What happens if a rogue Goa'uld…like Sokar," said Dr Jackson, "whose been banished by the System Lords decides to come after us?"

"In order to maintain the treaty the System Lords would endeavor to prevent it," replied Thor. "Our greatest advantage has been the feudal nature of the Goa'uld, our greatest concern has been a single Goa'uld rising to domination. If Sokar were to overtake the System Lord collective, the Asgard may not have sufficient power to stop it."

"So…basically, you guys are bluffing," said O'Neill in consternation, looking at Harry and Thor alternately. Harry winced inwardly at the blunt truth.

"There is no other alternative, Colonel," said Harry with a sigh. "There is currently no race in the galaxy who possesses the sheer numbers of military that the Goa'uld have at their disposal. The best defense is often the one that exists only in the mind of your opponent."

"Yes," agreed Thor. "And now I need to return to my ship. It will be some time before the System Lords will reconvene. If you need to speak to me personally, just tell Harry."

"We appreciate you doing this," said Dr Jackson sincerely.

"The Asgard will be required to sacrifice much before this is over," said Thor ominously, "and so will you."

And the small alien vanished in a column of white light.

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General Hammond, the Defense Secretary and Harry were waiting in the briefing room. The negotiations had resumed after Dr Jackson had typed a formal apology in Goa'uld and had O'Neill sign it. Harry had decided to sit this session out in order to 'gauge the field' so to speak; by speaking to the General and the Secretary.

"Thor mentioned that you would be the Asgard representative to Earth, if the treaty happened," stated the Secretary, inviting elaboration.

"Indeed," said Harry. "I would act as a direct line of communication between the SGC and the Asgard, which is not dependant on the Stargate network."

"But surely we could just go to Hall of Thor's Might on Sumeria and contact the Asgard directly if we needed to," opinioned the General, and Harry sensed that the portly base commander was none too enthused by the Asgard's request that he be stationed here. _Almost as if he thinks I'm going to be a spy for the Asgard_, thought Harry amusedly. The Asgard did not need a person in the SGC to do spywork. Asgard sensors were amazingly sophisticated and could scan and classify every single atom of matter that made up the mountain and its interior.

"With all due respect, General, but if the Goa'uld launch an attack on the Stargate by keeping an active wormhole with Earth, then there will be no way for you to reach outside help, either through the Tok'Ra or the Asgard," explained Harry patiently, tenting his fingers under his chin. "I, of course, know that you will not allow me free access to this facility without earning your trust first, since how do you know whether I really am who I say I am. So, until you verify my story, I will offer you this incentive; I will offer my widely diverse services to your direct command General Hammond."

"What kind of services?" asked Hammond with narrowed eyes.

"Oh, I'm somewhat of a jack of all trades, assassin, soldier, warrior, scientist…"

"…technology?" asked the Secretary neutrally.

"I cannot, of course, provide you with technological knowledge beyond what is wise for the level of maturity our civilization has reached, especially with regards to weapons," said Harry with a rueful grin. "However, I will assist in the development and implementation of any technology or knowledge that you acquire otherwise."

"That's a very fine line," noted General Hammond.

"I know," said Harry with a sigh. "But it is one I will have to walk and I would like nothing better than to ensure that Earth has an effective ability to resist the Goa'uld. But the sad fact of the matter is that neither I nor Thor nor you can guarantee that any advanced technology simply given and not earned would be used for good and wise purposes. As you know the Tollan learned that the hard way."

Any further conversation was interrupted by the appearance of O'Neill; who looked supremely irritated and angry, judging by the way he undid his tie and opened his shirt to free his neck from the stifling tight air force uniform and sat down, the rest of SG-1 following in his wake.

"What happened?" asked General Hammond.

"If Earth wants in to the treaty, the Goa'uld are demanding we give up both our Stargates," said O'Neill with a snarl.

"What did they demand of the Asgard?" asked Major Carter.

"Oh, the right to go into some or other part of space, called the passage of Nylo…nylon or something like that," muttered O'Neill, stumbling on the word.

"The Passage of Nylor," provided Harry. "And before you think that it's not a major sacrifice on behalf of the Asgard…the Passage of Nylor is a highly strategic cluster of star systems, rich in not only naquadah and trinium but is also a strategic hyperspace crossroads for that entire sector."

After everyone digested this new information Dr Jackson spoke up, "While that certainly put things in perspective, are we seriously going to consider giving up gate travel?"

"Considering the alternative…" stated General Hammond ominously.

"I believe that ring out there is the single most important thing on this planet," said the Secretary seriously. "And I understand what losing the gate would mean, but it is on your word," he gestured to O'Neill, "that we trust the Asgard. And peaceful solutions to this crisis must be considered."

"True, but…" said O'Neill disgruntled, and thankfully Major Carter, who apparently sensed that the Colonel was about to put his foot in his own mouth, interrupted him.

"The point is, sir," she said, "with all due respect, it's not nearly as simple as you put it."

"There are other threats to this world this treaty will not protect you from," intoned Teal'C seriously.

"From what Harry and Thor have been hinting," said O'Neill earnestly, "an enemy far worse than the Goa'uld."

"If any of you can tell me absolutely, why we can not accept this proposal, I will forward your opinion to the President, and I assure you it will be given serious consideration," said the Secretary, inviting anyone to speak. Harry so wished he could convey the sheer threat the enemy of the Asgard posed to not only Earth, but to all biological life in the two Galaxies. But Thor had been adamant that Earth would only be involved as a sheer last resort.

Harry had just sent O'Neill to Thor's ship for further consultation on the issue of giving up gate travel when Dr Jackson approached him with an offer to take a walk on the surface. Once they were outside the mountain, Harry breathed in the familiar early morning air of Earth, the sun just peeking over the horizon; a warm feeling of relaxation entered him and he felt a weight lift off his shoulders that he had not even been aware of.

"Thanks Dr Jackson," said Harry sincerely, breathing deeply again as they walked along a mountain trail.

"I figured you would appreciate a walk on the surface," said Jackson with a grin. "The SGC is not really something that can give you the true sense of Earth."

"No it doesn't," agreed Harry softly. "But I sense you didn't really invite me here to allow me a reconciliation with the planet of my origin."

"No," said Dr Jackson. "I just wish to know if you could perhaps, tell me of the Asgard, their culture, values, attitudes…anything you'd be willing to share."

"Well," said Harry with a frown, thinking it over. "I suppose that wouldn't be information that Thor would keep restricted, if Earth's going to be an Asgard ally. Anyway, the Asgard as a species evolved in the Ida Galaxy and is a dominant force there. They are governed by an assemblage of various Council's…the High Council is at the top of the societal structure, while minor councils, each tasked with a specific function, reports to them. For example, Thor, while he has a seat on the High Council, is also the leader of the Military Council and Supreme Commander of the Asgard Fleet."

"Is there a specific leader of the High Council?"

"None, the Asgard have no single individual vested with executive power, the High Council as a collective are vested with that power."

"Culture, any religion?"

"Culture, yes, the Asgard are capable of many art forms, however the means with which they do the arts are usually outside of our experience. Their range of hearing is much higher than ours, and they see higher wavelengths of light, all the way into the Infrared spectrum. So you could be looking right at an Asgard artwork and not even know it," explained Harry with a smile, but it turned to a frown. "Religion, no, nothing you could phrase as such. There is nothing structured to what the Asgard believe."

"What do they believe?" asked Dr Jackson eagerly, finding Harry's lecture fascinating.

"That creation is infinite, and that a Creator must also exist, since the structure behind nature could not be a mere accident of fate or whatever you want to call it," said Harry, but they were interrupted by a beeping coming from Dr Jackson's pocket. The archeologist pulled out a small mobile phone and stared at the message on it.

"We have to get back," he said, his tone urgent as he stared with wide eyes at the message.

"I'll have us beamed back into the mountain," said Harry, who pulled out an Asgard jewel device and gave it a mental command. There was a flash and two columns of white light engulfed them. They reappeared inside the SGC; where alarm klaxons were going off everywhere.

"I'm going to check on the Goa'uld," announced Dr Jackson and headed down the bustling corridor. Harry decided to follow and a few minutes later they were running along a corridor in level 25, where the Goa'uld were being housed for the summit in as lavishly decorated rooms as the SGC could manage on such short notice. SFs ran up to Dr Jackson and escorted him towards the rooms in question, Harry just a step behind.

"I demand to know what has happened!" shouted the voice of Nirtii from her doorway, she and Yu was kept from advancing further by two large SFs.

"Stay in your rooms please," said Jackson hastily as he and Harry brushed past them. The doors to Chronos' quarters were open and Harry could see the white uniforms of medical coremen kneeling over two bodies. The inside of the room was in a state of shambles, destroyed furniture and ripped furnishings were strewn about, and in the center of the mess lay an unconscious and bloodied Teal'C. Chronos was in much worse shape; a larger pool of blood had coagulated on the floor and heavy bruising was evident on his face.

"I don't understand," said Jackson a confused grim frown on his face.

"What do you mean?" asked Harry, just as grim. It would take a miracle to get the treaty worked out now.

"I got a message from Jack, we were going to agree to the System Lord's demands to give up our Stargates…and now this…"

Teal'C was stable in the infirmary and his larval Goa'uld was assisting the healing, Chronos was not so lucky…the host's body was too severely damaged.

A few hours later General Hammond, Dr Frasier and Jackson, O'Neill and Harry were gathered in Major Carter's laboratory. They were watching a video screen, which showed security camera footage of the corridor outside the Chronos' quarters. The Major herself was delivering the report.

"The SF's in the corridor sounded the alarm," said Major Carter, "they say Teal'C passed them and told them he was going to see Chronos."

"Well, Nirtii and Yu are demanding an explanation," said Dr Jackson delicately.

"Do we tell them?" asked O'Neill.

"Lying now, would only make a bad situation worse," said Harry. "Based on the video tape evidence, it looks like Teal'C is somehow involved."

"Hey!" said O'Neill, looking affronted. "Teal'C would never…"

"I'm not accusing Teal'C of complicity in the attack, Colonel," sighed Harry wearily. "Merely that he was involved somehow."

"I don't believe for a moment that Teal'C would sacrifice our interests to satisfy a…personal vendetta," said Dr Jackson earnestly.

"What personal vendetta?" asked O'Neill with narrowed eyes.

"Well…" said Daniel reluctantly. "Apparently, Teal'C and Chronos have some pretty heavy history."

"Such as?" asked Hammond.

"Chronos killed Teal'C's father." Harry rubbed the bridge of his nose at a situation that was just becoming worse and worse. O'Neill groaned in desperation.

"Oh for crying out loud, why doesn't he tell us these things?" he bemoaned. "Why didn't _you_ tell us?"

"He confided in me," said Daniel uncomfortably.

"That certainly provides motive for Teal'C to attack Chronos, and he was in the room when the attack occurred," said Harry. "Though we have to get Teal'C version of events first before making any further judgments."

"Perhaps we can also ask the Goa'uld if they could help Chronos in some way that I can't," said Dr Frasier, "we still have that handheld Goa'uld Healing Device."

"You have one of those?" asked Harry in surprise.

"Yes," said Carter. "Hey, that's right, you could use it to heal both Teal'C and Chronos, since you used to be a host to a Tok'Ra. And you would be much more proficient with it than me, because your blending was voluntary."

"I will have no problems healing Teal'C with it," said Harry, he had considered using his Ancient Healing powers to heal both Teal'C and Chronos, but it would raise too many questions and he did not think they were ready to witness such power. "But I think it will be telling to ask either Yu or Nirtii to try to heal Chronos."

"What do you mean?" asked Major Carter.

"Just a hunch," smiled Harry deviously.

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Harry stood over Teal'C's bed in the Infirmary, Dr Jackson, Major Carter and Dr Frasier stood on the other side; looking nervous and fascinated at the same time by witnessing this. Harry threaded his hand through the circular jewel-like Goa'uld Healing Device and closed his eyes. Almost immediately a yellow glow emitted from the device and a low warbling hum resonated through the air. Harry moved the device over Teal'C up and down.

"The device does two things at once," explained Harry. "The first is a diagnostic scan of sorts that gives the user a 'mind's eye' image of the body and internal organs; allowing for a diagnosis as to what is wrong. In this case, there is inter-cranial swelling in Teal'C's skull, he also had a few broken ribs but his larval symbiote has already taken care of it."

"The second function is healing, of course. It does this by applying rejuvenating mitochondria energies directly to the damaged areas the user wishes."

"Fascinating," said Dr Frasier. "The ability to manipulate mitochondria energy would be every doctor's dream come true. I assume the power comes from you?"

"Yes, the device is using the radiant energy of the naquadah in my blood and converting it into mitochondria energy," said Harry, his eyes still closed as he spoke. "Which I am going to do now…" The yellow light noticeably became brighter and stronger and bathed Teal'C. After not more than five seconds Harry let out a breath and the device powered down his eyes opening. Not a few moments later, Teal'C opened his own eyes.

"Hey, Teal'C, can you hear me?" asked Major Carter.

"Indeed," said Teal'C softly. Dr Frasier brought out a penlight and tested Teal'C's cortical response by shining the small bright light into his eyes.

"You're going to be fine," she declared happily. "And in record time, thanks to Harry." Teal'C eyed the Goa'uld healing device in Harry's hand and narrowed his eyes.

"Don't worry Teal'C, he was a host to a Tok'Ra in the past," said Major Carter, interpreting Teal'C's sudden weariness.

"That is good to hear," said Teal'C. "I thank you, Harry."

"You're welcome, now if you don't mind, would you be up to answering questions about what happened when you went into Chronos' quarters?"

"One of the soldier's guarding level 25 handed me a note written in Goa'uld, it was apparently from Chronos, asking if I could meet in his quarters," said Teal'C. "I was hesitant at first, but did not want to give him a reason to abandon the treaty negotiations. I went at the time indicated. He admitted me into his quarters, but claimed to have sent no such communication to me. Before we could even exchange a word further we were attacked."

"By whom?" asked Major Carter.

"An invisible force," said Teal'C with reluctance.

"A Rituu?" said Daniel; referring to the aliens who existed out of phase with normal space and were enemies of the Goa'uld. "What would they gain by stopping our treaty?"

"I didn't sense the presence of a Rituu," said Teal'C firmly.

"Hathor could appear and disappear," said Daniel with realization.

"Hathor is dead," said Teal'C just as firmly.

"I know who attacked you and Chronos, Teal'C," said Harry suddenly; the pieces of the puzzle clicking together in his mind.

"What?" asked Major Carter and Daniel in chorus. "Who?"

"There is a difference between knowing, and proving it," said Harry in reply. "The fact that Teal'C was attacked by someone that has phase shifting technology immediately narrows the list of suspects."

"No one on Earth has that technology," said Major Carter.

"So that leaves the Rituu, who we agree has nothing to gain from sabotaging the treaty," said Daniel.

"By sheer process of elimination then, it has to be either Yu or Nirtii," declared Harry. "Yu also has no real motive in sabotaging the treaty. But from what we know, the Goa'uld do not possess the technology either."

"We've eliminated all possibilities it seems," said Teal'C.

"Not necessarily," said Daniel, in deep thought, twirling an elastic band around his fingers. "What if Hathor's phase shifting technology was claimed by another Goa'uld when we killed her."

"That makes sense," said Major Carter.

"It is Nirtii then," said Harry. "When I performed a subtle scan on the Goa'uld for concealed weapons, I picked up a momentary minor emission of a specific energy particle from Nirtii; one that I know is required for shifting the phase of any object."

"That's all and well," said Carter. "But as you said, how do we prove it, especially to the other Goa'uld."

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Harry stood in the observation booth above the darkened operating room where Chronos was still convalescing. Major Carter and Dr Frasier offered the Goa'uld Healing device to Nirtii, asking the System Lady whether she could do anything with it to heal the dying Chronos.

Nirtii accepted the device and began the same process Harry did with Teal'C, under the watchful eye of Lord Yu. However, Harry noticed the twitches of strain around Nirtii's eyes as she moved the light of the device. After ten seconds of trying, Nirtii stopped and handed the device back to Carter.

"I have done all that I can," said Nirtii in her distorted voice. "There is too much damage for even this device to work. What he needs is a Sarcophagus."

"There is no way anyone is leaving the base, until the attacker is found," declared General Hammond from behind Dr Frasier.

"You would doom your world," snarled Nirtii. "If we fail to report back to the other System Lords, they will send the full might of the Goa'uld to descend upon your pathetic planet!"

"Then we'll at least take you with us!" snarled General Hammond back. "Get them out of here!" he barked to the SFs. O'Neill waved cheekily goodbye to them.

Once the Goa'uld were gone, Harry walked into the room.

"She held back the healing aspect of the device," reported Harry at once.

"You sure?" asked the General.

"Yes," nodded Harry. "The strain around her eyes showed it and no mitochondria energy was released."

"Then by all means, Harry," gestured Hammond to the dying System Lord. Major Carter handed the healing device to Harry, but he refused it.

"It is best if you do this, Major," said Harry. "You must learn, for it could be critical in the future."

"I really don't know what I'm doing with it," said Carter sheepishly.

"I will guide your thought processes to the correct paths," said Harry encouragingly with a smile. "Slide it over your hand…" she did so, "…breathe in and out, relax, calm your mind…" Harry guided her hands so the device hovered over Chronos's chest. "Now, feel your strength, your potential, imagine you are a river of energy…the device is a waterfall…" The device gave a few strangled bursts of energy. "Don't be afraid, the device won't kill you…let it happen, trust, belief…know that you can do it." The yellow light became constant.

"I see it," said Carter, with a smile.

"Excellent," said Harry. "You're doing great, now…think of healing, of getting better, or any memory of excellent health you can call forth and…" The device emitted the brilliant glow of healing energy and soon enough stopped.

Chronos opened his eyes.

"You have healed me," he said, with a surprised air, but it only lasted a second. "I am sure you only spared my life to prevent your own destruction."

"Hey!" said O'Neill. "We didn't do this to you. And we saved your snakey little butt because we want this treaty to happen."

"That is not possible now," said Chronos, shaking his head. "Nirtii and Yu have undoubtedly blamed the Tau'ri for this attack on me."

"Good catch," said O'Neill sarcastically. "Look, it's obvious to everybody, that one of them did this to you. What if I can prove which one? What's that worth to you?"

There was silence for a moment. "What do you ask in return?"

O'Neill smirked and stared at Harry, who nodded.

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O'Neill, Dr Jackson and General Hammond stood in the meeting room, facing a seated Yu and Nirtii, while two armed SFs stood menacingly behind them.

"You lied about being able to heal Chronos," said O'Neill. Yu looked suspiciously at his fellow Goa'uld for a moment, but turned away.

Nirtii scoffed in disdain, "I tried honestly and failed. I was willing to save Chronos by taking him to a Sarcophogus."

"Maybe you were, maybe you weren't," said O'Neill neutrally. "But the fact is that you are the only Goa'uld here who has the technology to become invisible."

Nirtii narrowed her eyes for a moment in anger and then stood, "That is a lie!"

"Whose lying?" asked O'Neill. "We called the Tok'Ra."

"They say you've been experimenting with phase shifting in order to battle the Rituu," said Daniel carefully. The latter was a carefully constructed lie. The Tok'Ra did not know, but the fact of the matter was that Nirtii could not know if she had a Tok'Ra infiltrator in her domain. They wanted her to assume that she had. The best spy is often the one that is not even there. Yu, of course, also assumed this, therefore deduced it to be fact. He slammed his fists on the table and stood accusingly in front of the System Lady.

"You would not share this technology with the System Lords?" said Yu menacingly.

"They are lying," said Nirtii.

"You dare attack Chronos and defile our treaty with the Asgard!" said Yu, invading Nirtii's personal space, forcing her to back up.

"It's not true!" she said defiantly.

"You are the one who opposed this treaty," declared Yu. "You have long coveted Chronos' territory."

"_Go dagh_!" swore Nirtii in Goa'uld.

This enraged Yu who in a flash raised his hands to strangle Nirtii. But before his fingers could close around her neck…her form seemed to shimmer and totally disappear. This surprised Yu and allowed Nirtii to push him away. Not a moment later one of the two guards were attacked and knocked out and his weapon swung around in mid-air to point towards Yu.

"Look out!" shouted O'Neill and tackled Yu to the ground just as a burst of gunfire swept towards them, making everyone duck underneath the table.

The doors opened and the remaining quick-witted guard opened fire on the doorway, bullets sparked and ricochet against the hallway outside ineffectually, but it served the purpose of forcing Nirtii to run away.

Meanwhile, the invisible Nirtii was running for her life.

She was surprised however, to feel her invisibility being counteracted. Harry and Major Carter had come from opposite ends of the hall, both toting Transphase Eradication Rods; weapons that were designed to battle the Rituu and gifted to Earth by the Tok'Ra. It worked by eliminating the field that pushed the Rituu out of phase with normal space, and luckily enough it covered such a wide range of frequencies that it worked for just about any form of phasing technology.

"Drop the weapon, Nirtii," said Harry calmly. "Slowly."

Nirtii looked highly reluctant and still held her appropriated M-16 resolutely.

"You ever seen one of these things work?" asked Major Carter threateningly. "Because there is nothing I'd like more than to demonstrate."

Reason seemed to take hold of the System Lady and she slowly placed the weapon on the floor. Harry walked forward and switched off the phase shifter on her wrist, disguised as a bracelet and pulled it off. An SF also came forth and bound her hands, and soon they escorted Nirtii back to the meeting room to face Yu.

Harry arrived just in time to hear how Yu agreed to the same proposition Chronos had agreed to. Earth would keep its Stargates and allowed into the Protected Planets treaty; but if any Tau'Ri were found on a Goa'uld world, they would be fully subject to Goa'uld attack.

Harry also found O'Neill's response amusing when the two System Lords delivered their warning just as they were leaving through the Stargate with a restrained Nirtii in tow.

"Well, that certainly makes life more interesting," said O'Neill dryly.

Chronos narrowed his eyes at O'Neill and sneered, he and Yu whirled around and grabbed Nirtii and disappeared into the event horizon of the subspace path…the Stargate shut down…

"Boy, is she going to get it," said Daniel.

"She'll probably be killed once or twice and revived with sarcophagus," said Harry with a satisfied grin. "Then after the System Lords takes her phase shifting technology, she'll probably be banished to a backwater planet with an ineffectual number of Jaffa."

"My heart bleeds," said O'Neill sarcastically.


	6. Chapter 6

_**Chapter Six – Of Recovery and a Bounty Hunter**_

_SGC, Earth…_

The inner wheel of the Stargate spun a final time, locking the point of origin glyph into the powerful device. The subspace path engaged and the event horizon settled into a slightly rippling pool of a watery illusion. But it was obscured on this occasion; an iris of cold hard titanium was closed over the mouth of the Stargate. If anybody tried to walk through this incoming subspace path their molecules would have no place to be reintegrated…but the Stargate's systems did not know this and so would reintegrate the matter it received within the point four micron space that was available in front of the iris. A standard complement of SF's rushed into the gate room bearing their weapons and the two large 50 caliber machine guns were manned on either side of the embarkation ramp, in case the iris should fail.

General Hammond and Colonel O'Neill stood behind the main controller operating the Stargate, an Air Force Master Sergeant.

"No off world teams are due," said General Hammond.

"Receiving no identification code from the traveler…" said the Sergeant, but trailed off as he saw the iris to the gate beginning to wobble and eventually open with the sound of a hundred swords sliding against each other.

"I did not give the order to open the iris, Sergeant," barked Hammond.

"It opened by itself, sir," said the perplexed Sergeant.

There was a slight ripple in the event horizon as Harry calmly passed through it, his silver chromesuit glistening in the lights.

"About time he showed up," murmured O'Neill.

"Stand down!" barked Hammond into the microphone next to the Stargate controller; the assembled contingent of SFs lowered their weapons. Harry walked slowly down the ramp and was met by Hammond and O'Neill.

"Greetings, General, Colonel," said Harry, bowing his head slightly.

"Ambassador," greeted the General. Harry felt he would never get used to being called that.

"You know," said O'Neill sarcastically. "Being a representative of the Asgard to Earth, generally does mean you have to be on Earth."

"I've just been gone for a week," explained Harry patiently. "And I have other endeavors against the Goa'uld that require my attention. I gave you the subspace transponder specifically to summon me in an emergency should I be off world. Now, where is Dr Jackson, he wanted to see any samples of Asgard art and culture I could bring for him that he could examine."

"Perhaps this is a conversation we should have in the briefing room," said General Hammond in a rather solemn manner. And sure enough Harry was soon seated in the comfortable high backed leather chair in the aforementioned room and joining them was Dr Frasier and Major Carter. The mood of everyone around him was instantly obvious.

"What's wrong?"

"Dr Jackson has been confined to a psychiatric facility for his own safety and treatment," said General Hammond. "He's been diagnosed with schizophrenia."

"Well," said Harry eventually. "I obviously have only recently come to know Dr Jackson but he seemed perfectly sane to me, and given that schizophrenia is almost always a result of a genetic disorder; I would have to say that there has to be an external factor to his condition."

"The only working hypothesis we could come up with is something we need your expertise on," said Dr Frasier. "Could extended use of the Stargate cause any disruption in brain activity?" Harry closed his eyes for a moment appearing to think hard and then opened them again.

"No," said Harry flatly.

"No?" asked O'Neill inquiringly.

Harry sighed impatiently. "During the Goa'uld 1st Dynasty, they were also quite interested if any long term effects would occur due to gate travel on the symbiotes. So…to test the theory they repeatedly pushed a human slave through a subspace path in one direction, and back in the other direction every day over a period of a year. They then subjected the slave to all sorts of physical and psychological tests and finally killed him to do a post mortem examination of his brain tissue." Everyone winced at the story.

"Their conclusions?" said Dr Carter, an angry and disgusted expression on her face.

"That the subspace flux experienced by the energy that your body is turned into when traveling through a subspace path is so miniscule that even over the long term, the error ratio that occurs when your body is rematerialized is less than one ten thousandth of a percent," said Harry succinctly. "There are no long term psychological side effects from gate use. So you can all do yourselves a big favor and get Dr Jackson out of there."

At this point an airman interrupted the meeting stating that there was an urgent call for O'Neill, which he took from a nearby wall-mounted phone.

"Dr Jackson is not our only recent unexplainable problem," said the General next. "Teal'C fell severely ill shortly after Dr Jackson was hospitalized and all attempts to find out why have proven unsuccessful."

"A Jaffa falling ill?" asked Harry slightly incredulously. The larval symbiote that a Jaffa carries protects them from nearly all types of diseases. A sick Jaffa was unheard of.

"Well, it seems for some reason his larval symbiote is also dying," said Dr Frasier with visible frustration. "No diagnostic I have tried has shown anything wrong with the symbiote, by all appearances it should not be happening."

"Yet, it is," said Harry unnecessarily. "What did SG-1 encounter on your last mission?"

"We found the site of the remains of a lesser league of Goa'uld, the Linvus," said Carter. "We've not been able to tell what had killed them, but we've ruled out all the likely candidates on who killed them, except the System Lords."

At this point O'Neill returned to the meeting by putting down the phone, "Well, it seems that Daniel must know something about what's going on."

"How so?" asked Dr Frasier.

"He knew that Teal'C was sick, even though none of us had been in contact with him since the visit to the psychiatric facility," said O'Neill. "He convinced Dr Mackenzie to call me and find out. He's requesting my presence."

"Go," ordered the General.

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Harry stood just outside the protective plastic tarp around Teal'C's bed, numerous monitors and life support equipment was clustered around the former Jaffa. Teal'C was bathed in a cold sweat and his eyes were moving quite rapidly behind his eyelids. At this point a haggard looking Daniel dressed in blue SGC fatigues entered the room with Major Carter and O'Neill following in his wake.

"Hello, Dr Jackson," greeted Harry.

"Harry," said Daniel in response but his eyes turned to stare worriedly at Teal'C.

"Feeling better, I trust?"

"Much, thanks," said Daniel, "have you been able to make anything of Teal'C's condition?"

"I've looked at Dr Frasier's analysis of the larval symbiote's condition," said Harry in deep thought. "It's clearly reacting as if it was being attacked on a cellular level by something, but whatever is doing this is very well hidden."

"Well, I think I have an idea about that," said Daniel. "Do you know a man by name of Machello?"

"It sounds familiar, but I can't recall at the moment," said Harry, while he had learned and retained most of the knowledge from the Tok'ra symbiote Jamilla when he was blended with her, it was sometimes quite difficult to recall knowledge or memories that was too specific.

"He was part of a race of humans about a hundred years ahead of us in terms of technology, but still not much of a match for the Goa'uld," explained Daniel. "He was a man I think on par with Da Vinci in terms of his inventive genius, but instead of using it to produce art and science, he turned it towards fighting the Goa'uld. He engineered all sorts of devices and inventions solely for the purpose of killing, maiming or disabling symbiotes."

"And you think you might have come into contact with something when you found the dead Linvus Goa'uld?"

"Exactly," said Daniel, "I think I picked it up then and because I didn't have any Goa'uld in me, a side-effect of carrying it was me becoming schizophrenic. Then when Teal'C and the others came to visit, I started acting crazy and Teal'C had to subdue me, I saw something go out of me and into him and then I heard Machello's voice thanking me for delivering him to the vile Goa'uld."

"Assuming this theory of a Goa'uld killing invention is correct," said Major Carter, "why did it take so long to go into Teal'C? You were in his presence many times before you were committed."

"I guess it needed close proximity to sense Teal'C's larval Goa'uld," said Daniel, Major Carter and Dr Frasier continued to look skeptical. "Look, I've had a lot of time in that little white room to think about this…it makes sense. Why am I suddenly back to normal? And coincidentally, hours after touching me, Teal'C is sick."

"All right, but Daniel, we ran every test imaginable," said Dr Frasier, "Cat scan, MRI, x-ray, full bloodwork, there is nothing foreign in Teal'C's body."

"That only means that Machello did a very good job of hiding the device," said Harry in return. "If I was to invent something like this, I would not make it easy for the Goa'uld or anyone else to find. Since it could be extracted and studied, and the Goa'uld could devise a defence against it."

"Daniel, the dead bodies have only been there for a month," said Major Carter. "Machello has been dead for six months, how could he be responsible?"

"What if he planted those killing devices there six months ago or a year ago," said Daniel. "And the Linvus walk into their meeting…"

"Like a landmine," said O'Neill with comprehension.

"Yes!" said Daniel. Major Carter frowned for a moment and walked off to a nearby computer terminal. "Mines from World War I are still going off today, even though the soldiers that planted them are long since dead."

"After Machello died we crated off everything in his laboratory and had it sent to Area 51 for study," announced Major Cater. "Let's check in the database for anything that's familiar." The computer produced a slideshow of every piece of technology taken from Machello and soon enough Daniel pointed to a picture of a Goa'uld information tablet and its accompanying page turning device (PTD).

"There, that's it, I used a tablet and PTD in the Linvus chamber," said Daniel, the next pictured show a display of twenty PTDs.

"Why so many of 'em?" asked O'Neill.

"Could be your landmines," stated Harry.

A few hours later and a priority delivery later from Area 51, found Dr Frasier, Major Carter and Harry within the hermetically sealed lab on level 24, while O'Neill and Daniel watched from the observation room. A single PTD and tablet had been delivered from the Groom Lake Facility, and was now encased within a sealed examination pod, which had exterior ports and attached to which were gloves for persons arms to stick into and manipulate whatever was inside. The PTD itself was a rather innocuous looking turquoise and shaped almost like a computer mouse.

Dr Frasier stuck her arms into the pod and threaded her fingers into the gloves while Major Carter did the same, Harry stood enigmatically to the side and gazed into the pod, watching them work.

"OK, now how does one set this thing off?" asked Dr Frasier rhetorically; she took a pair of forceps and tapped it on the PTD.

"It would need a stimulus that would indicate that it was being used by a Goa'uld," said Harry.

"Well, in that case, when you use it to turn the page, since mostly only a Goa'uld would read Goa'uld," said Samantha logically. She picked up the device with the forceps and passed it over the tablet slowly. A low long hissing was heard as the PTD did its work and just as suddenly a shower of neon blue slug like devices fell out of the PTD. Harry assumed that these were Goa'uld killing devices; and watched as they squirmed about on the tablet.

"I'm counting ten devices in total," said Dr Frasier. "So ten per PTD."

"That accounts for the nine Linvus Goa'uld and the one that went into me," said Daniel over the microphone.

"Get your hands out of the gloves!" shouted Harry, recognizing why the devices were slightly distorted. He pushed both women on either side of him away from the pod, but it was no use, their hands were stuck in the gloves. Samantha was about to ask why Harry had reacted in such a way, but saw why when the killing devices squirmed onto her gloves and went straight through it. Both women tried their best to get away but by the time their hands were out they could already see the devices squirming under their skin.

The AI in Harry's chromesuit had detected the danger, and not a moment later the suit grew to encompass his neck and the back of his head…there was a slight flash of materialization over his face and a curved visor had appeared to finish the seal. But Harry knew that it was but a useless gesture from the AI.

"The damn things are out of phase!" exclaimed Harry; as he saw three of the devices squirm over the legs of his chromesuit…the things barely needed a moment to phase through his suit and he briefly felt them enter his body before all sense of them vanished. He released a helpless sigh and looked at the other two flabbergasted women as alarms started to wail throughout the room and the base at large. He willed the AI of his chromesuit to return it to normal configuration and began to wonder just what it would feel like to be schizophrenic.

"Now what?"

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It soon became apparent though that neither Harry nor Major Carter would have to find out; both felt a sharp pain in their ears and not a moment later they felt a something trying to force its out of them. Harry saw the three killing devices that had entered him fall to the floor, powerless, and now in phase with the rest of reality. But they had left behind a message, the voice of an old man spoke in his ears…_I have delivered you from your Goa'uld captor, enjoy your freedom_.

"Daniel?" said Samantha, staring the observation window, "I could have sworn I heard…"

"Machello?"

"Yeah," said Samantha, "it told me it had freed me from my Goa'uld captor. But I don't have a Goa'uld in me."

"We were both host to a Tok'ra, Major," stated Harry, looking with pity at the severely agitated and delusional Dr Frasier; who was mumbling to herself incoherently and at one point even started to undress her blue air force blouse…complaining about a heat that wasn't even there…though she did keep her bra on in the end.

"You may be right," said Samantha. "Janet said that when a Goa'uld dies and dissolves into the host it leaves a unique protein marker."

"That is a fact," said Harry, "but an incomplete one, it also occurs when a voluntary separation happens. The protein marker itself is actually the equivalent of an identification tag. Tok'ra mark their hosts so a record can be kept of who had hosted whom."

"So are you suggesting that the devices left because of the protein marker?" asked Daniel.

"Yes," said Major Carter. "Can we take some of my blood and inject it into Dr Frasier?" she asked of Dr Warner, who had entered the observation booth as there was no way they could risk breaking the seals of the lab.

"No, your blood type doesn't match, Major," said Dr Warner.

"My blood would be sufficient, I have the O positive type," volunteered Harry.

"That could work, for Dr Frasier only," said Dr Warner. "Teal'C has negative type blood, it wouldn't be compatible."

"Curing Dr Frasier would be sufficient to set her to work on the problem," stated Harry calmly and walked to a table and rested his arm on it…his chromesuit retreated all the way up his arm so he had no more sleeve on it, baring it and stared at Major Carter expectantly. She nervously completed the procedure of drawing blood out of a major vein in his arm and into a plastic vial.

As they didn't know how much of the protein would be required for the devices to leave Dr Frasier they filled a four cc syringe with Harry's blood and injected her. The results were near instantaneous and Harry could only marvel at the ingenuity behind these devices…he would have to request access to them in the future…they left the Doctor within seconds of the blood being introduced.

After that it was a simple matter for Dr Frasier to get around the blood type discrepancy problem. As separating the unique protein marker would take weeks (weeks that Teal'C didn't have), she came up with the idea of separating the red blood cells and plasma (the parts that make blood incompatible) from the blood and giving Teal'C the rest. What was unknown though, was how smart Machello had made the killing devices…as Teal'C would possess the marker but still have a Goa'uld.

But like clockwork, a few seconds after the protein had been introduced…Teal'C started to convulse for a few moments and then stilled, opened his eyes and muttered 'Machello'. The slug like device squirmed out of his ear as if confused as to what it should be doing…but before it could do anything else a medical vacuum promptly sucked it out.

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_Seaworld…two weeks later…_

"Certainly is a beautiful planet this," said Dr Jackson, as he and Harry walked calmly on the large tropical island that housed the Stargate. "I can see why you suggested it."

"Well, it was this," said Harry with a grin, "or General Hammond was going to throw you off the base and deny you access until you had vacation. You should not have gone to Orban so soon after your…ordeal…with Machello's killing devices."

"It was an opportunity that couldn't be missed," said Daniel with a sheepish shrug.

Seeing as this was a vacation, Dr Jackson had come dressed appropriately in a loose shirt and three quarter pants and sandals with a bag strapped over his shoulder carrying enough clothes for at least a week. Harry on the other hand was not on vacation and was only escorting Daniel to his lodgings.

Said lodgings was to Daniel's mind something straight out of Getaway magazine…just ahead was a wooden dock that led out onto a boardwalk, half a meter over the impossibly clear blue lagoon between this main island and another one over eight hundred meters away (the island was clearly part of an extremely large atoll)… which led to a grouping of stilted cottages, numbering about five in total. The round cottages had thatched roofs and looked to be made of bamboo walls…but Daniel had yet to see a bamboo tree on the island.

Harry saw Daniel shake his head in confusion as they moved along the boardwalk.

"When I was ten I saw a place like this in a magazine at the school library, an island near Indonesia I think it was," commented Harry, "ever since then I wanted something like it to be able to just escape to when I needed a break."

"It's beautiful," said Daniel, the rolling sound of the ocean and distant waves and the fresh smell of the air pervading his senses and relaxing him. "It's not actually made out of wood and bamboo?"

"The smell and feel of it is as close to wood as I could manufacture," said Harry with a grin, breathing deeply and feeling the tranquil nature of Seaworld overcome him, "but structurally it's composed of strong artificial materials that can conceivably withstand any storm. Don't worry," he added, seeing Daniel's look of worry, "this is not the season for it."

Daniel's attention was drawn to movement at the doorway of the nearest cottage. Standing framed in the doorway was a tall woman; her skin was noticeably browned in the sun and curly black hair reached down to her shoulders; her face had both an elegance and a strength to it, high cheekbones but an angled face. She wore leather-like brown skin tight pants that reached to her knees and gave a clear idea of her curved hips while a very brief brown leather top completed the outfit, but left most of her abdomen bare and rather daringly left the valley between her ample breasts visible as well. Her feet sounded against the boardwalk as she closed the distance between them.

Harry had a huge smile on his face though and they embraced each other rather unusually; he cupped his right hand against the left side of her face while his left had grasped her waist, she on the other hand had mirrored his position.

A few moments passed, but before Daniel could begin to feel uncomfortable with what he assumed was a display of affection between Harry and his girlfriend and or wife, they broke the embrace.

"Dr Jackson, I'd like you to meet my companion," said Harry with a smile, "Apollonia. Apollonia, meet Daniel Jackson, he is the one whom I spoke to you about."

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Dr Jackson," said Apollonia, bowing her head slightly.

"Likewise," said Daniel, bowing in return.

"She will make sure you don't run into any difficulties throughout your stay here," stated Harry astutely. "Now…if you will excuse me, I must return to Earth."

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Earth, a few hours later…

The subspace path shut down and Harry walked down the ramp to be greeted by two antsy looking members of SG-1. Though they were antsy for wholly different reasons.

Colonel O'Neill was waiting for Harry to give him an example of the new 'toy' that Harry had agreed to supply to the SGC, in exchange for allowing access to all of Machello's inventions and encoded research notes (he hoped to use an Asgard computer back on Seaworld to try to crack the encryption).

Whilst Major Carter was waiting for two five-inch diameter spheres of elemental Naquadah to properly test out her newly developed Naquadah Reactor.

"So how's Daniel settling in?" asked O'Neill casually.

"He was fine last I checked," said Harry with a grin. "The diving on Seaworld is literally and figuratively otherworldly. And my wife will make sure he doesn't get himself killed. The stratka are quite deadly if provoked."

"Stratka?" asked Sam worriedly.

"Yes, oh, they're about the size of a killer whale, but have the teeth of a shark," said Harry casually. "Anyway, since I can see you're both anxious to get the goodies I've brought," he held up an Asgard jewel device, "let's get going."

The three walked out of the embarkation room and their first stop was the Armory and indoor firing range on level twenty. There was no one practicing on the range at the moment, so it allowed Harry to explain the 'toy' he brought for O'Neill and the SGC without interruptions or curious onlookers.

Harry walked over to a large empty table; a place usually reserved for the cleaning and stripping of weapons, and stroked the jewel device in a circular pattern…a column of white light appeared and materialized a large rectangular silvery case on the floor. Harry waved his hand over the case and its lid parted on its own. O'Neill looked down into it and whistled in appreciation.

"Colonel, Major," said Harry with a grin. "This is a weapon I developed initially for my own use, but when I heard of Ra's death I knew it would not be long until Earth drew the attention of the Goa'uld, and as such I began making them in larger numbers to give to the nations of Earth if it ever came down to an invasion."

Harry hefted the weapon slightly smaller than an M-16; it had a matt black finish and looked much more deadly than a M-16 could ever hope to be. It had three prongs arranged in a menacing looking triangular formation in the front, the muzzle pointing out in the center, other than that it looked pretty much like a rifle; butt, trigger, grip and so forth. He pulled out a strange looking bulbous device that glowed slightly, but did not explain it's function but it became apparent when he slid it along the front of the weapon and it easily hooked into place between the upper and left prongs of the weapon, the ammunition clip.

"This is a hybrid weapon," explained Harry, "it combines the best aspects of energy and projectile based weaponry. It fires a temporarily existing projectile that contains high energy plasma at three thousand feet per second at a rate of six hundred shots per minute, effective range of three hundred meters, but deadly accurate up to one hundred. The projectile itself is actually no more than a tiny hyper accelerated containment field for the plasma, which is released upon contact with the target. Each clip of ammunition contains enough plasma for forty shots."

"Cool," said Carter with a grin. "But how about reloading the empty clips with plasma?"

"I will show you an injection interface that could be designed for the base's nuclear reactor," Harry showed them a button to press just above the trigger and the weapon charged up with a high-pitched hum. Without warning and before they could even don earmuffs Harry shouldered the weapon, took aim and let loose with a burst of fire from the weapon. O'Neill was about to chide Harry for not waiting but stopped himself. The weapon had emitted no more sound than a MP-5 with a silencer. The effects on the paper target a hundred meters down the range was also enough to silence him in astonishment.

Harry thumbed the button to bring the paper target towards them. There were four perfectly placed five-inch holes in the paper, over the heart, head, groin and weapon of the 'enemy' pictured on the target. He handed the weapon with a grin to O'Neill…who aptly looked like a kid in a candy store.

"This first case of PR-7s are meant for the use of SG-1 exclusively," said Harry.

"PR-7s?" asked O'Neill, testing the weight of the weapon in his arms.

"Yes, short for Plasma Rifle…and it was my seventh design…this one…that finally worked," said Harry with a rue grin. "You should be made aware of the security features on this weapon. It can be customized to the biometrics of its owner."

"You're joking," said Carter with eagerness.

"Hardly, Major Carter," retorted Harry. When O'Neill looked clueless to the significance of this Carter as usual had to explain.

"Sir, the weapon can be made so that only you can fire it."

"Cool," said O'Neill, aiming the weapon down the range.

"If anyone unauthorized tries to use or open the weapon," said Harry with a glint in his eyes, "make sure you aren't within ten meters."

"Why?" asked O'Neill casually.

"The containment field within the ammunition clip is released and an explosion equivalent to a high yield fragmentary grenade occurs."

"Cool," said O'Neill again, and took his first shots with the PR-7. Blue energy released from the front of the weapon lit up the interior of the range eerily. The plasma bolts shifted to blue in the visual spectrum once outside of the weapon and made it appear as if O'Neill was firing blue tracer rounds.

"I've had these weapons customized to myself and the rest of your team Colonel, do not allow anyone else to handle them, unless you wish to send eulogies," said Harry seriously.

"Understood," said O'Neill, loosing his easygoing persona for a moment.

Harry and the Major now headed for her lab on level twenty five where the prototype naquadah reactor was mounted on her lab table; the reactor itself was composed of three interconnected foot long spheres, with an outer shell of polished steel lined with lead to contain radiation. He brought out his jewel device again and a square silvery box appeared. Harry again waved his hand over it, willing the device to open. The dark obsidian spheres of naquadah were revealed…polished perfectly smooth.

"I still can't believe I didn't think of shaping the naquadah into a sphere," muttered the Major self derisively.

"In my experience, it often happens that when you are too close to a problem, you can't see the obvious solution," stated Harry, and using the jewel device as a ruse to hide his use of Ancient power, he hovered the sphere out of the box and guided it carefully into the first cradle inside the reactor and did the same with the second. Major Carter took over and sealed the reactor spheres. She then consulted her laptop, which was connected to the central control sphere of the reactor and made a few adjustments.

"Ok," she said nervously, her finger hovering over the 'enter' button, which would initialize the reactor. "Here we go…" she tapped the button and the reactor lit up and began humming contentedly. "Yes!" she pumped her fist in triumph.

"What is the power curve?" asked Harry interestedly. He had been fascinated when the Orban allowed the technology exchange of the reactor less than two weeks ago. There was obviously much more powerful sources of energy that he knew of but the Orbanian naquadah reactors were the most compact and efficient design he had yet encountered.

"Double my previous calculations, it should provide a stable flow of about three point two terawatts per minute and short duration bursts of fifteen terawatts per minute, but that would significantly hasten the decay of the naquadah," reported the Major.

"Indeed," said Harry. "Well, I hope you guys find a planet with a suitable deposit of naquadah soon, because you're going to need a lot of it."

"True," muttered the Major with a sigh. "We hope to soon find such a planet from the Ancient map of Stargates Colonel O'Neill put into the computer. Oh, and by the way, we're sending a UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) tomorrow to scout a new world the computer churned out from working on the old Goa'uld map of Stargates…General Hammond wondered if you would like to accompany us to it, since Daniel is taking the week off."

Harry seemed to consider it for a moment, "Should be fun!"

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It was a densely forested world. The thicket was rough and made movement for the now three member SG-1 quite difficult. However, their 'observer' as Harry was being officially called on the books for this mission seemed to have no trouble whatsoever picking a path through the thicket that didn't have him so much as breaking a sweat. (Harry was subtly influencing the bushes in his way with telekinesis to part in front of him.) Initially, O'Neill had offered some green fatigues for Harry's use on the mission and an 'Earth' patch with the 'At' (which was the corresponding verbal sound used by Harry's Ancient ancestors to indicate Earth) point of origin symbol on it. Harry had merely smirked in amusement and a moment later his chromesuit changed color to mimic the green worn by SG-1 and the 'At' Stargate symbol appeared a moment later on his left shoulder.

O'Neill, Major Carter and Harry had decided to give the PR-7s their first tryouts in the field, whilst Teal'C had opted to come with only a Zatnickatel,…since all indications from the UAV showed no Goa'uld activity around the Stargate. This was somewhat contrary to what happened next as the UAV was shot down by what it's sensors reported as a Staff weapon before all telemetry was lost.

And this was the mission of SG-1 at the moment, find the downed UAV and determine what or who shot it down.

"How much further?" asked O'Neill.

"Getting close," said Carter, staring down into her rather crude detector, which was apparently capable of sensing any EM or radiation within a radius of only a hundred meters. They passed a grouping of trees and Teal'C was the first to spot the downed UAV.

"Over here," he called. The gray UAV was in rather bad shape. Its frame was bent from the crash and the weapon blast had sheared the entire left wing off. Teal'C and O'Neill remained at a few meters away as an obvious precaution at this being a trap. However, the moment Carter touched the downed shell of the UAV…Harry felt energy flare up all around them in a cocoon that extended in six meters in every direction from the UAV; he shifted his vision into the Ultraviolet and saw immediately that they were encased in a shield trap of Goa'uld design with a few unique modifications.

Harry calmly turned around from his position next to the Major and walked up to the perimeter of the shield, "I'm afraid we've rather neatly fallen into a trap."

"What?" asked Carter, confused. Harry touched the shield and the three others watched in alarm as the shield cocoon flared red into the visible spectrum. "How…" she began to ask how he had known but stopped herself, knowing Harry would only dissemble.

"Well, let's see what these new babies can do then," said O'Neill, hefting his PR7 and pointing it into the air. "Heads up!" he warned. O'Neill fired a four shot burst and the blue plasma pulses streaked into the shield, but was stopped cold, despite a brief wobble in the shield itself.

"With enough sustained fire you could breach the shield, Colonel," Harry glanced around at the once again invisible shield, "but we have nowhere near enough ammunition between us to achieve it."

"Do not bother!" came an oddly distorted voice. It was revealed to be a large muscular human walking into view from behind a thick tree. He wore a gray silver body suit with rugged boots, and wore armor around his shoulders and a combat harness and belt that held multiple tools and weapons, while a large empty holster was tied around his left leg that was for a large modified Transphase Eradication Rod (TDR) that was at this moment pointed at the team. What seemed to be obscuring his voice and hiding his face was a sloped sensor mask that was a favored tool among the Ashrak (Goa'uld assassins who personally carry out the orders of the System Lords) but it was clear to Harry's senses that this man was no Goa'uld. It was clear that this was a mercenary in the employ of the Goa'uld.

"Your weapons will not penetrate the shield in time," said the merc. "However, mine will."

A blue beam shot out of the lower end of his TDR and went through the shield and vaporized a small portion of a petrified trunk that stood next to Teal'C. To the Jaffa's credit he did not so much as flinch from the event. O'Neill had come to a crouch next to a tree stump and asked the obvious question.

"Who are you?"

"Aris Boch," said the merc, "perhaps you've heard of me?"

"Not me," said O'Neill, with a frown. "Teal'C?"

"I have not," said the Jaffa, who kept his Zat aimed at Aris Boch despite the shield, waiting for any opportunity to strike, no matter how unlikely it would come.

"Harry?"

"It's a very big Galaxy," he shrugged nonchalantly.

"That's disappointing," said Aris with a mocking brokenhearted tone, "I'm one of the Galaxy's greatest hunters!"

"It doesn't ring a bell," said O'Neill, "sorry." He was anything but.

"Well, I've heard of you," said Aris, he faced the Major, "Captain Samantha Carter," he faced Teal'C, "the Jaffa traitor, Teal'C," he turned to Harry, "Ambassador Harry, representative of the Tau'ri for the Asgard," he finally faced O'Neill. "And Colonel Jack O'Neill."

"Well, fancy that," said O'Neill with sarcasm, "we're famous."

Aris Boch pulled on a pump action lever on his weapon and stated ominously, "now, drop your weapons."

"And if we don't?" asked O'Neill.

"Do we have to get diplomatic?" sighed Aris.

"Why not?" said O'Neill and that was all warning he gave before he flung his combat knife with lethal precision towards Aris. It would have been a really impressive kill, had it worked. The shield flared into existence and caught the knife easily, stopping it a few feet from Aris' chest. Aris chuckled mockingly.

"You were thinking of the Personal Defense Shield the Goa'uld use," he said in his distorted voice that was really starting to irritate Harry, "the one which allows slower moving objects to pass through. Wouldn't make a very effective trap, now would it?"

"Can't blame a girl for trying," stated O'Neill with a rue smirk.

"Are you kidding?" said Boch, "That's exactly what I expect from you. Now drop your weapons orrr I'll kill someone."

O'Neill frowned and eventually nodded towards the rest of his team and Harry. They reluctantly dropped their weapons, while Harry did the same. Once again, Harry was faced with a conundrum, it would be child's play to take Boch unawares with a simple use of telekinesis or any of his powers, but to do so would open a can of worms among the Tau'ri that he did not believe they were ready for. So he decided to play along and only use Ancient powers as a last resort to prevent death or effect escape as it seemed Boch was here to capture them…but there was no way he could have known about their arrival until he spotted the UAV…hence Boch must be here for something else.

"I'm sure you're all thinking of escaping, but you should know that I've disabled the dialing device of the Stargate, and even if you manage to overpower me, which is unlikely, you'll never get off this planet," he further explained, the shield flared red again and fell with a slight chirping sound. "This way."

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Boch led them to a large clearing in the forest a few hundred meters away from where the shield trap had lain.

"Everyone stop where you are," he said abruptly. Harry and the rest of SG-1 stopped and turned to face the hunter. "Drop your gear." SG-1 reluctantly complied. "Inside."

"Inside where?" asked O'Neill.

"Inside there, _bo roke da_!" he spoke the latter in Goa'uld. Harry felt an energy flare behind him and he watched as a doorway emerged out of nowhere…obviously some form of cloaking technology. O'Neill yelped in surprise and regarded the door with amazement. They were escorted into what seemed to be an older model Goa'uld cargo transport. The golden interior gleamed with hieroglyphs and four escape pod tubes were easily visible.

Boch moved to the door that headed into the rear compartment and once he was sure no one could see, typed in a five symbol combination and the doorway parted. The door sealed shut behind SG-1 and Harry with an impassive Boch still pointing his TDR at them. The sound of the outer hatch opening and closing told them that the hunter had left.

"Sir, he's not Goa'uld," reported Carter.

"And, but, so, therefore?" asked O'Neill.

"There have been rare instances when a conquered civilization's members may have impressed the Goa'uld enough for them to be spared in exchange for providing a service to the Goa'uld while they hold some form of ultimate leverage over the indentured," explained Harry. "Boch may be one such as this."

"That's all well and fascinating," said O'Neill, "but why don't we use the time to find a way out of this. Teal'C, how fast does one these things fly?"

"I believe it's capable of traveling twice the speed of light."

"Home in time for dinner," said O'Neill with sarcastic grin.

"Twice the speed of light is still a snail's pace in interstellar terms Colonel," said Harry with an enigmatic grin. "It would take ten years at that speed to get to Earth."

Conversation was sparse from that point on as O'Neill decided to take the time to examine every nook and cranny in the cargo compartment for a conceivable advantage to use against Boch. Teal'C had propped himself on a cargo container and stilled himself so much that it looked like he was a statue. Harry and Major Carter were arguing however on a finer point of physics relating to the naquadah generator.

"How would naquadah as a liquid make any further appreciable adjustments to the power curve? The energy needed to make it a liquid and keep it as such is just not efficient…"

"That's because…" said Harry with growing frustration, but was interrupted when he heard the outer hatch opening and closing. Teal'C leapt to the side of the door, intending to ambush Boch from the blind spot in the room, but as usual Boch was two steps ahead and had stood at an angle to the door as it opened and discovered Teal'C easily.

"Back with the others," said Boch, gesturing with his TDR menacingly, as his other hand was occupied carrying a small case of some sort. Teal'C complied as Boch sat down on a cargo container with a visible wince; clearly he was injured. He removed the sensor mask and finally revealed his strongly featured face with piercing, intelligent eyes analyzing every move in the room.

"Captain Carter I assume you have some medical field training?" asked Boch, opening the case next to him and revealing it to be an advanced medical kit.

"Actually it's Major now," said Carter, obviously not wanting herself to be referred to as a Captain the whole time.

"Oh, how very important," said Boch mockingly, "I'll inform the galaxy. Now, _Major_, can you get over here and treat my wound."

O'Neill nodded with a resigned look at Carter and she got up and walked towards Boch, who pointed at the various healing solutions to use in conjunction with the bandages. It was really too bad that Boch had not chosen Harry for the job; it would have allowed him to subtly spell an unconsciousness matrix into the mercenary.

"Ahh!" winced Boch as the Major probed the wound on his shoulder; which revealed Boch to have an extremely unusual physiology, he had yellow blood. She began pulling apart the bandage and applying the ointments to it.

"So!" said O'Neill, jumping off the container he had been sitting on, walking forward. "Who shot you?"

"Don't come any closer," warned Boch leveling his TDR at the colonel.

"Just making conversation," said O'Neill nonchalantly, backing slightly off.

"Well, capturing you lot was unintentional," said Boch, "the real reason I'm here is to catch a Goa'uld."

"You hunt Goa'uld?"

"I hunt anyone of value," corrected Boch.

"Which Goa'uld are you hunting?" asked Harry with a frown.

"His name is Keltar," replied the hunter. Harry did not know of Keltar, but then, if it was a minor Goa'uld in service to a System Lord then most likely no one would have heard of him. A System Lord did not want to play second fiddle in any of his endeavours.

"I have not heard of him," said Teal'C.

"Have you met every Goa'uld?" asked Boch mockingly. "I haven't. But the only thing I know is that Sokar has discovered that Keltar is plotting against him."

"So you work for Sokar?" asked O'Neill.

"No," said Boch.

"Self employed then, independent contracter, rogue warrior?"

"I give to the Goa'uld, and they give back to me what I want in return," he stated simply.

"How do you keep from getting killed?" asked the Major from behind him.

"Takes talent," he said simply.

"So…what exactly are we worth?" asked O'Neill.

"Well…" said Boch, considering the subject with apparent deep thought. "Teal'C is worth the most, the System Lords would love to make a good example of him. Carter and the Ambassador have the memories of the Tok'ra Jolinar and Jamilla respectively, not to mention that the Goa'uld could no doubt learn a lot about the Asgard from him as well," explained Boch. "And you O'Neill, you're considered…well, you're a pain in the _mikta_."

"Neck?" asked O'Neill of Teal'C.

"No," said Teal'C shortly; Harry had to suppress his mouth to keep from smirking.

"But what can we offer of value for our freedom?" asked Harry, seeing the way out of the situation without a fight.

"Done," announced the Major before Boch could respond.

"Good, back with the others," ordered the hunter, and turned to face Harry. "Well, there is something you all can do."

"Let's hear it," said O'Neill looking resigned.

"Well, you help me capture a Goa'uld, I let you go," said Boch simply.

"He's worth that much?"

"Yes, though the Ambassador here comes a close second, but lucky for you Sokar doesn't take betrayal lightly."

"Indeed, but why would you accept our help anyway?" asked Harry with a suspicious frown.

"I take any help when I can get it," shrugged Boch modestly. "You see this injury is going to take time to heal and I don't have much of it. Sokar can figure out everything I can figure out, and if I want to trade Keltar to Sokar, I have to get there first."

"And how can we be sure of our trust in you? That you won't double cross us the moment you have Keltar in your hands?" asked Harry.

"My word is good on over two thousand planets," he said seriously.

"There are billions," said O'Neill in which he probably considered a serious argument.

"It would appear we have no choice," said Teal'C neutrally.

"Yes," said Boch mockingly. "Choiceless. Guys! Come on! What's the big deal? It's a Goa'uld," he said in a tone as if that should explain everything. You hate Goa'uld, I hate Goa'uld…everyone hates Goa'uld!"

O'Neill sighed deeply and stared at his shoes contemplating the choice, "Ok, fine…we'll do it."

"Good!" said Boch, standing. "You and you come with me," he pointed to Harry and O'Neill, "the rest of you…stay."

"Oh, now wait a minute…" said O'Neill beginning to object.

"Ah-uh," said Boch with amusement dancing in his eyes and shaking his head.

"Choiceless?"

"See, that's why I like you," said Boch, "you're quick. Let's go." Boch led the way out of the ship and sealed it behind them…vanishing from view, leaving Teal'C and Carter behind.

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O'Neill was ordered by Boch to lead the way through the dense forest, with Harry following…allowing the hunter to keep both under a watchful eye and under the aim of his TDR. At one point though, the hunter stopped and with a meaningful glance lowered his weapon and holstered it only saying, "You trust me, I trust you." Before he pulled out what looked like a water canteen and a small tube of a blue substance.

Harry's eyes widened as he recognized the substance, he had seen its use and effects when he was blended with Jamilla. It was called the _Rashna_ and it was used only a few times in Goa'uld history as a weapon of enslavement for races who were particularly difficult to conquer for some or other reason. Couple that with his unusual physiology and the memory came forth to Harry.

"You're a Furian," said Harry, who couldn't keep the slight amazement out of his voice.

"I knew it wouldn't take you long, Ambassador," smirked Boch. "Yes, I'm a Furian, guilty as charged."

"And the significance of that is…?" said O'Neill expectantly.

"The Furian's are the only race in this galaxy, at least that the Goa'uld know of, that are naturally resistant to the implantation of a symbiote…they can't be used as hosts."

"Cool," said O'Neill, looking at Boch with a hint of respect for the first time.

"Oh yeah," said Boch mockingly. "It's so cool, the Goa'uld only nearly wiped out my race because of it. They kept the youngest as slaves and killed the rest."

"Not that this little bit of historical revelation isn't worth something," said O'Neill, "but what did you have in mind for the capture of this Goa'uld?"

"Well, you two are going to surrender to him," said Boch simply.

"That's a bad plan," said O'Neill.

"This Goa'uld will not be in mood to take prisoners," opinioned Harry. "Not when you have him cornered like this."

"That's your problem," returned the hunter in an unconcerned fashion. They resumed walking in the direction for what they assumed was the Goa'uld.

"You know," said O'Neill, "if you really were the greatest bounty hunter in the galaxy, you'd capture that Goa'uld yourself and turn us all in."

"And miss the chance of watching the great Jack O'Neill in action," said Boch with a grin. "You want to know how I became the greatest bounty hunter in the galaxy?"

"More than life itself."

"I'm the greatest because I'm alive, that's it. I'm not greedy. If I can capture a Goa'uld with all kinds of fancy toys without risking my neck, that's a damn good compromise."

"Fancy toys?" asked O'Neill.

"All you gotta do is get close enough to shoot him with a Zat'nickatel."

"OK," said O'Neill stopping and facing Boch, while Harry stood to the side. "Found a flaw in your plan."

"What's that?"

"Well, we're exactly one Zat gun short from actually having a Zat gun."

"Zat…gun?" asked Boch in amusement.

"Drop the 'nickatel'," explained O'Neill.

"I suppose it does save a bit of effort," said Boch, nodding in agreement. He reached behind him into his belt and produced a Zat gun and chucked it at O'Neill. The Colonel was rather astonished as he thumbed the priming button and the Zatgun uncoiled into a 'ready-to-fire' position.

"You're giving me a working Zatgun?" asked O'Neill in astonishment.

"Well if it didn't work, it wouldn't do you any good," said Boch. "I'm trusting you."

It was the last thing he said as O'Neill shot a blast of blue coiling energy that hit Boch in the chest and sent him collapsing to the ground like a sack of potatoes.

"I take it you have a plan, Colonel?" asked Harry archly.

"We'll fly the ship to the closest planet with another Stargate and gate home."

"Good plan," admitted Harry, who inwardly remonstrated himself for not having thought of it. O'Neill walked past the prone hunter unconcernedly, but Harry stopped to removed that nasty looking TDR from its holster. It was at this point that Harry sensed emotion coming from Boch, amusement…he wasn't really unconscious, he was faking the fall.

Harry narrowed his eyes in anger and with a wave of his hand a red unconsciousness matrix shot out of his right hand and swirled into Boch. Harry carefully probed the Furian's mind and fired another matrix just, to be safe.

Harry ran to catch up with the Colonel.

"O'Neill, I will meet you at the clearing, I must get our weapons."

"Hey…wait…" O'Neill couldn't say anything further because Harry had ran into the thicket, disappearing from view. Twenty minutes later and O'Neill was trying to remember what the damn password was to get into the cloaked ship. All he had gotten for his effort was coming up with a few new colorful cool sounding words that with his luck a Goa'uld would understanding as a swearword.

"Having fun, Colonel."

O'Neill jumped in surprise as Harry's voice came from behind him. He turned to find a smirking Harry carrying all three PR7s and Teal'C's Zatgun.

"Hey, how did you get so sneaky?"

"Talent," was all Harry said, handing the Colonel his weapon.

"Where's Boch's weapon?"

"It's like your PR7, only Boch can fire it, so I dropped it a few meters away from him under a bush," explained Harry.

"Oh," said O'Neill. "Anyway, what was that word…?

"_Bo rok da_," said Harry in fluent Goa'uld. The door to the cargo ship appeared out of thin air and opened. O'Neill and Harry grabbed the team's gear and ran inside. "Don't touch anything, Colonel."

"Why?"

"Because Boch was immune to the Zat blast, he faked it," said Harry, putting down the combat vests and looking around scanning with his enhanced sight. O'Neill stared at Harry in confusion.

"Why would he do that?"

"Probably to prove a point that even if we could get one up on him that we would still be stuck on this planet, but I saw it and knocked him out."

"Oh, so you're saying that this ship is probably booby trapped or something."

"Exactly," said Harry, staring around. He walked towards the center steering console and opened the engine initialization cowling; it was missing an ignition crystal. "Clever. There should be a third crystal here, he must still have it, stay here Colonel, and as I said…"

"Don't touch anything."

Harry walked out of the ship and this time he was gone for over two hours. O'Neill had in the meantime made conversation with the still trapped Teal'C and Carter to pass the time. It astonished O'Neill though when he saw that Harry was not alone. He was supporting a badly wounded dark skinned man, who wore elegant teal brown clothes that had clearly seen better days.

"Sorry we're late," said Harry. "O'Neill, meet Bora, this is the supposed Goa'uld we were supposed to help Boch capture."

"Then I take it, Boch was lying about the whole Keltar thing," said O'Neill dryly, as Harry helped the man to lean against the bulkhead.

"Yes, Bora here is a Tok'ra, not a Goa'uld," stated Harry confidently.

"You sure?"

"I worked occasionally with him when I myself was a Tok'ra," said Harry, giving a friendly smile to Bora.

"It's an honor to finally meet the people of the Tau'ri," said Bora tiredly, bowing his head slightly, but winced in pain.

"Rest easy, my friend," said Harry and he reached into Major Carter's combat vest and pulled out the healing device she always kept with her. The device warbled into life and orange healing energies flowed into the Tok'ra; who let a gasp of relief after it finished.

"OK, so did you manage to get that crystal doohickey?" asked O'Neill.

"Yes," nodded Harry holding up the kite shaped ignition crystal, "it took a while for me to open Boch's utility harness, as it was booby trapped as well. I also found an information tablet containing the order from Sokar for Bora's capture. I then went off and managed to coax him out of his little cave stronghold, luckily he recognized me before shooting me with that hand device."

"I am truly fortunate that you and the Tau'ri arrived Harry," said Bora with a grin, standing up rather stiffly. "There is no way one such as you could be thwarted by Boch. You have saved the lives of many Tok'ra operatives in Sokar's ranks. The High Council will hear of this."

Harry bowed, as was custom for such a compliment from a Tok'ra. He walked over to the center cowling and replaced the ignition crystal; Bora had told him of this new failsafe that Sokar had put into his ships; if you removed the delmak (control crystal) and any of the ships systems were accessed it caused the ship to shut down and a delayed self-destruct to start counting down. Bora walked over to the control pad and pushed the five key combination and the door parted.

Introductions were made all around and soon Bora was seated in the pilots chair and guiding the cargo ship out of the atmosphere and a few moments later the ship set a course for the nearest gate world and jumped into hyperspace.

"So, Harry," said Major Carter, "you said you got the control crystal from Boch's utility harness, did you leave him the DHD crystals he took as well?"

Harry grinned and amusement danced in his eyes, "yes, I did leave them for him, right at the Stargate…" he trailed off and "…surrounded by a grouping of automatic remote weapons, kindly provided by Bora."

"But if he has his TDR…" said Carter.

"He'll get it eventually," confirmed Harry. "But I pity him when Sokar finds out he has failed."


	7. Chapter 7

_**Chapter Seven – Loss**_

_SGC – Earth…_

Harry walked into a surprisingly very crowded briefing room. It seemed as if almost every CO of every SG team and backup personnel of Army Rangers and Marines was squeezed into the room, awaiting General Hammond who was busy talking to Colonel O'Neill in his office.

He had not thought much of the general announcement that came over the base PA system that all senior personnel had to have this apparent emergency meeting. He had been busy over the past few weeks giving a select group of CO's and training instructors a hands on course in the PR7s; so that they could in turn train others in their commands. Over the weeks the shooting range had had an almost constant presence as the SGC combat personnel qualified themselves to carry the weapon.

The various Majors and Captains closest to the door that spotted Harry nodded in greeting. If there was one thing Harry had achieved these past few weeks besides the rollout of the PR7, it was that he had come to know a good majority of the officers in the room; and they had come to know him to some degree in return.

The General's door opened and everyone stood to attention.

"At ease," said Hammond, sitting down, the assembled senior officers and SG-1 doing the same, while the lower ranks had to content themselves with standing. "Four hours ago, an incoming wormhole from Abydos delivered an automated distress beacon and a message from one of the Abydonians. Now, they were given the beacon and radio and instructed to use it only in the event that they were to come under attack from hostile forces. The message details that a large contingent of Jaffa has invaded Abydos, the estimated number is over a hundred enemy troops."

The General paused for a moment, then continued, "Given the special relationship we have with the people of Abydos the President has authorized a full liberation effort to be undertaken." The assembled officers looked at each other seriously and with wide eyes at that. "I want a full mobilization of SG teams one through eight, eleven through fifteen, and half our contingent of Marines. Gear up and be ready in the embarkation room in two hours…Ambassador?"

Harry looked up.

"Is the Darkstar operational?"

"It is," confirmed Harry, but then frowned. "But it's never been tested under even simulated battle conditions."

"Darkstar, sir?" asked one of the younger officers in the room.

"I'll let the Ambassador explain," said the General and gestured for Harry to come to the front of the room. Harry threaded himself through the clogged briefing room to the front and stood calmly poised with his hands behind his back.

"Darkstar is a more advanced variant of the UAV you all know," said Harry. "It was recently developed by Boeing and I was approached by one of the engineers who also moonlights as an civilian consultant for the SGC. He was interested if it could be adopted for use by the SGC."

"The Darkstar is a partially self-guided drone that flies and can hover at fifty-thousand feet over any theater of operations. It's made of radar absorbent stealth material and is painted to match the sky. Using multiple high resolution imaging sensors it provides up to the second tactical intelligence on enemy movement and general disposition of friendly forces and objectives."

"Now, since the Goa'uld use subspace sensors, it's quite pointless to think that the stealth aspect of the drone will work, so I incorporated the phase shifting device that I confiscated from Nirtii a few months ago into the drone. The drone, once airborne will send live images to a controller on the ground, who will have an ergonomic laptop computer attached to him or her."

Everyone looked suitably impressed. O'Neill raised his hand.

"And just who is going to be carrying the ergo laptop thing?"

"I'll volunteer for that," said Carter, raising her hand. "I'm pretty familiar with the software. The Darkstar directs itself and hovers unless you give it a command to do something. I can relay the tactical intelligence to Colonel O'Neill as it comes in."

"Anymore questions?" asked the General. There were none. "Dismissed!"

The assembled officers stood and filed out of the briefing room. The General approached Harry.

"Ambassador, while I'm sure you would be an asset to this mission, there is no guarantee that it will succeed," said the General gravely.

"Since when in life is anything certain, General?" said Harry in return.

"Never," said Hammond with a sigh. "However, I feel that your future contributions to this command and to Earth as a whole would be for naught if you were to die on a mission of…this nature."

"Saving the Abydonians from the oppression of the Goa'uld is unimportant?"

"No," conceded the General. "But in the grand scheme of things…" he trailed off, not needing to finish the sentence.

"Very well," said Harry. "Then perhaps I will take over the operation of the Darkstar from Major Carter, I can relay the proper intelligence to the them via radio from inside the Abydonian pyramid and if things should go badly I can help with a retreat…should it come to that."

"Very well, dismissed," nodded the General.

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Two hours later a wormhole was established to Abydos. The first thing go through the Stargate was a disposable remote camera contained within a circular transparent ball about a foot in diameter that was tossed though the event horizon. It was balanced so that it would land and come to a stop and give a wide angled view of the surroundings.

The tech sergeant in the control room monitoring the feed from this camera spotted several figures hurrying behind the pillars in the Abydos arrival room…not a few seconds later the distinctive orange blasts of Staff weapon fire hit the camera ball and destroyed it; but it had performed its only task perfectly, which was to give a tactical picture of the situation.

The sergeant spoke into the microphone next to him, which was addressing the assembled troops in the embarkation room.

"Be advised, arrival room has a hot reception," echoed into the gate room.

"You heard the man folks," said O'Neill. SG1 and SG2 were standing halfway up the ramp, fully geared and ready. "Let's give them a flash." All of them except for Teal'C and Daniel pulled out a phosphorous grenade or flashbang, the arming pins on the weapons were removed and hurled into the event horizon.

"Objects are en route," reported the sergeant, a few moments later, "objects have fallen through the gate."

"GO!" ordered O'Neill and the initial eight strong assault team rushed through the gate, their PR7s and the single Staff weapon up and ready to fire the instant a target was perceived. The flashbang's had gone off and stunned and disorientated every enemy Jaffa in the arrival room when the assault team emerged from the event horizon.

Blue plasma bolts spat out of the PR7s with sharp low whines as the air was displaced around the energy projectiles. Not five seconds later the contingent of Jaffa guarding the gate were dead.

"Secure the room," ordered O'Neill, the two teams spread out, their weapons sweeping the room wearily. After another ten seconds of making sure of enemy casualties, O'Neill thumbed his radio. "Arrival room is secure, proceed."

A few moments later, SG3, 4 and a grouping of marines came through, in similar ready-to-fire postures and headed down the stairs away from the Stargate. In this manner, the entire assault force arrived until finally a large flatbed all terrain vehicle emerged through the gate, guided by Harry. On it was the secured Darkstar drone; it was just over three meters in height when upright and one meter in width, and was shaped almost like a honeycomb with angles similar to what you would expect to see on any stealth aircraft. Its flight was powered by variable geometry jet propulsion that would allow it to fly at just below the speed of sound and hover to give the imaging array of sensors a real time top down view of the terrain below.

"Sierra Golf Charlie, this is Sierra Golf One, we are clear and all accounted for," said O'Neill into his radio, "you may cut power to the gate."

"Roger that, Godspeed," crackled the voice of Hammond over the radio, before the event horizon flashed brilliantly and the subspace path collapsed.

Now, SG3, 4 and 5 led the way and secured the long stone stairs and walkway out of the pyramid into the blistering hot sands and dunes of Abydos that went as far as the eye could see. Harry felt the heat was quite blistering but it was easier to adapt to than Seaworld's summers on the islands, where the heat was just as high but added to it was the humidity factor. Using the attached control stick, Harry maneuvered the flatbed ATV just outside the pyramid, as they didn't want to waste time getting the Darkstar into the air, in case of a counter-attack.

SG12 had been assigned to assist him in deployment of the drone and they unlatched the heavy belts that had been keeping the Darkstar secure. The drone would use the ATV itself as a vertical take off and landing position, and articulated struts rising from the flatbed kept the Darkstar from tipping over.

Harry lifted the ergonomic controls, (which was essentially a modified combat vest that held the touch sensitive plasma screen of a laptop facing the user at about chest level, while the 'guts' of the laptop was mounted vertically on his back) and donned it. Harry's fingers danced over the screen, doing a quick systems check and verifying that the link to the Darkstar was holding.

"Colonel, everyone needs to be at least fifty meters away from this thing when it takes off," advised Harry.

"You heard the Ambassador, get moving," ordered O'Neill. Everyone in close proximity to the ATV retreated. Harry was the last to get safely clear, and he joined SG1 who was taking cover just inside the pyramid.

"OK," sighed Harry nervously. "Here we go," he tapped a button on the screen at his chest and the distinctive whine of a jet engine could be heard starting and getting steadily stronger, until the noise was almost deafening.

"Should have brought earplugs!" shouted O'Neill to no one in particular, holding his hands over his ears.

Harry instructed the drone to take off and hover at five meters. He heard the throttling up of the engines and dust was blown into pyramid as the thrust pushed the air around the Darkstar into a strong wind…the drone registered on the screen as hovering at five meters. Satisfied with the performance, Harry touched the phase shift control…a few nervous moments later, the Darkstar confirmed that it was out of phase.

He next told the drone to execute its primary mission, which was to hover at fifty thousand feet using the Abydos pyramid as a reference point.

The variable geometry jet engines shifted slightly and went to full throttle…the sound of the drone soon faded and all was relatively quiet again.

"I take it, it worked?" asked O'Neill.

"As expected," nodded Harry. "The drone is passing five thousand feet and should begin to relay images to me in about eight minutes."

"This is Sierra Golf Leader to all Sierra Golf personnel," spoke O'Neill, thumbing the radio attached to combat vest, "keep your heads up people, that launch most definitely was heard for a long way in all directions."

When the drone finally reached target altitude Harry brought up the real time visual feed. A huge wide angled top down view of Abydos appeared, the kilometers long lines of sand dunes reduced to the size of less than a few millimeters on the screen. He zoomed the image until a clear picture of the pyramid was just visible.

The Colonel and Major crowded over the display, studying it intently.

"Ok, we are here," said Harry, tapping the tiny pyramid on his screen. "There is an enclosure of sort a few kilometers north-east of us with a rather luxurious looking tent not a few meters away from it. No doubt where the captured Abydonians are being held, the tent being for the Goa'uld."

"What's this dark line here just a few hundred meters west of the enclosure? It doesn't look natural," mentioned Carter, drawing her finger across the stippled dark line. Harry isolated the section and zoomed in. Carter gasped at what she was seeing.

"That is way more than a hundred Jaffa," said the Major.

"The Darkstar image interpolation software counts at least two hundred and fifty," supplied Harry grimly.

"I thought you taught these kids how to count?" groused the Colonel at Daniel, who shrugged sheepishly.

"Some were better than others," he admitted.

"All right our PR7s and the fifty cals we brought along should go a long way to evening the odds, Ambassador, SG12, you're our fall back position should this thing go Fubar. So keep our backs clear and keep in touch with that intel."

"Yes sir," said SG12 in unison, while Harry nodded, emotion gone from his face and his eyes. The assault force left and headed east initially and soon it was only SG12 and Harry left in the arrival room. SG12's commander was a Major Everson who was standing near the exit, binoculars out and scanning the horizon. A wise thing in Harry's opinion, for all that technology advanced, it was only a fool who forgot the less sophisticated ways of doing things.

They waited.

Despite the fact that Harry could clearly track the assault forces' progress, which was quite slow due to the soft desert sand and high dunes, he could feel the now familiar lull in which time seemed to stretch interminably before battle was joined.

Harry had in the guise of the Norse God Tyr, assisted a number of primitive and more advanced civilizations battle against the Goa'uld. The most notable among them being the Tollan and the Tok'ra, (among whom very few knew his true identity) and of course, the Spartans, from whom he had met his wife. The wait before a battle was not a time Harry liked, but the sheer silence that reigns before it happens was oddly enough the most peaceful, like the proverbial calm before a storm.

Harry now felt a long culmination coming to bear on him. Despite helping defend so many civilizations…it was now that he helped the forces of his homeworld battle the Goa'uld, and it was quite literally…sink or swim…failure was not an option.

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Harry looked down into the Darkstar feed as the assault force finally reached the primary objective. There was a token defense of Horus Jaffa around the encampment, which was easily dispatched with overwhelming fire from the assault force. Harry immediately saw O'Neill begin to deploy his men along a low lying dune facing west, the direction they knew the Jaffa would come from.

He watched the tiny figure of O'Neill head toward the enclosure and set a small charge, which blew the lock.

And immediately, the entire area exploded with motion.

"Sierra Golf Leader, this is Delta Omicron (Harry had been designated Darkstar Oversight as his radio callsign for this mission), enemy is advancing on your position rapidly, distance two hundred meters."

"Roger," came O'Neill's reply.

Harry briefly saw the figure of what had to be Daniel firing at two Horus Jaffa that had emerged from the Goa'uld tent, both went down, and Daniel charged into the tent, Teal'C a few meters behind.

The now free Abydonians were retreating to the relative safety of the east, with a single SG team as escort.

Harry refocused the Darkstar and saw what was happening just in time.

"Sierra Golf Leader, Delta Omicron, there are detachments of Jaffa circling your line on either side trying to outflank you!"

"Got it!"

Harry saw O'Neill had just enough time for a quick reshuffle of his forces to counter the move and just when they were in position…the first enemy Jaffa crested the ridge overlooking the encampment. A veritable storm of yellow staff weapon energy and blue plasma bolts were now being exchanged. The fifty caliber machine guns also made their heavy presence felt along the flanks of the assault forces' line, cutting down the Jaffa that had been trying to outflank them. Casualties were not one sided however, Harry could already count eight dead on the SGC side.

Movement at the bottom of his Darkstar feed caught his eye and he panned down…

"Major!" said Harry towards the commander of SG12. "We have twenty enemy Jaffa coming our way! Two minutes out!"

"Two minutes?" said the Major exasperatedly, his team getting into position behind the cover of the large ATV. "I thought we would have more warning than that!"

"The Jaffa were concealing themselves in the shadow of large dune and its pointless to use heat sensors in this climate," stated Harry irritably, closing the control screen of the Darkstar against his chest and checking the charge on his PR7, powering it up. "They should crest over that large dune to the north."

Harry went down to a prone position to fire from underneath the ATV and sighted on the dune in question.

It was evident soon that the attacking Jaffa had increased their pace significantly, as it took a mere thirty seconds for them to crest over the dune. Orange blasts immediately started coming their way and slamming into the side of the ATV.

"FIRE!" screamed Major Everson.

Harry let loose with his PR7. A three shot burst, which felled a Jaffa in leg at first and then in the chest. At this long range though, Harry's comrades in arms, still not that used to the PR7 sent a few shots to left and right of their rapidly advancing targets; causing sand to explode in large plumes around the attacking Jaffa.

"Delta Omicron, sitrep?" came the Colonel's voice over the radio.

"Under attack here! I can't give you intel now, a little busy!" shouted Harry, slapping his radio to transmit and fired a stream of blue plasma to fell another Jaffa.

Nine Jaffa had survived the charge despite Harry and SG12's best efforts, and the survivors had found cover of their own along the sides of the long stone walkway that led up into the pyramid. The two warring groups traded ineffectual fire for a few seconds until Major Everson pulled out a fragmentation grenade. Harry and the rest knew without being ordered that he would need cover to fling the grenade, as such they began to send continuous streams of plasma bolts at the Jaffa to keep their heads down. Harry reloaded his PR7 just as Major Everson lobbed his grenade and a few moments later there was a deafening explosion that made his ears ring.

Four Jaffa were flung from their positions of like limp rag dolls while the rest were stunned off their feet, Harry and the soldier next to him rolled out of cover to the left and aimed at the remaining Jaffa from a crouch. Harry and his attacking partner (a Captain) managed to take out four in quick succession while the last remaining Jaffa managed got off a shot from his staff weapon that missed woefully due to his disorientation. The Captain felled the last attacker.

"Is everyone OK?" asked Major Everson; he got terse nods from everyone; due to the adrenaline in their systems. "Ambassador what's the status of the assault force?"

Harry wearily walked to behind the cover of the ATV before opening the Darkstar control interface and consulting the feed. Everyone waited with baited breath for his answer.

"We are victorious," said Harry droningly, his emotions seemingly suppressed. "No enemy Jaffa have survived from what I can see. The line of defense held. The Abydonians are still heading east."

"Sierra Gold Leader, this is Sierra Golf Twelve, the Stargate is secure," reported Major Everson into his radio.

"Roger that," reported O'Neill. "The Goa'uld is dead as well."

"Colonel, this is Delta Omicron," said Harry. "Who was our snakehead?"

"Amonet," said O'Neill shortly. Harry's eyes widened at the implication. Amonet had possession of Sha're…Dr Jackson's wife…it meant that she was dead as well. Harry couldn't imagine how the poor archeologist must be feeling now. But then Harry's mind happened on the question…why?

Why would Amonet go through all the trouble of capturing the Abydonians and remain here? Why spend all of her remaining Jaffa in such a way? Harry knew that she had fallen from grace due to the defeat and death of Apophis, her husband. It made no sense…the typical Goa'uld reaction would be to go into hiding or align herself with another System Lord receptive to her.

Harry learned the answer to this question during the post battle mop up operation.

"Harsissus?" he asked incredulously.

"Yes," said Dr Jackson grimly, staring at the ancient stone of the walkway into the pyrimand that he was standing on. Harry admired the man's emotional strength to talk about this not a few hours after the death of his wife. "Apparently, Apophis wanted the perfect host, so he fathered a child with Sha're. Amonet took the Abydonians merely as a show to Hero'ur, so she could send the Harsissus boy into hiding with her closest aid."

"Amazing that Apophis would risk the wrath of the others by fathering a Harsissus," said Harry with a frown. A Harsissus was the human offspring of two Goa'uld hosts; due to the interaction of host and symbiote, the chromosomes of any sperm or ova made by the hosts are slightly altered with Goa'uld chromosomes, and the culmination of both male and female genetic material would mean such a child would have enough Goa'uld DNA inside of them of carry the genetic memory of the Goa'uld before them…as such, all the secrets and knowledge that the Goa'uld had would be accessible to the human offspring. "The strategic benefit of the knowledge the boy possesses is astronomical."

Daniel only nodded. "But I have to find the boy, to take care of him, Sha're…would've wanted it."

"You would make a good father by my reckoning," said Harry with a grin. Daniel only nodded at the compliment, too distracted apparently by the task and responsibility of finding the boy.

"Finding him will be another story," said Daniel, "how to find a supposedly mythical place? Keb is merely a legend after all this time."

"If Keb is where Amonet sent the boy, then there has be a relevant Stargate address, and she would send him to a place where a Goa'uld would never think to look, or would never go."

"Makes sense," said Daniel with a sigh. "But where do the Goa'uld never go for any reason?"

"Any Asgard protected planet," suggested Harry.

"Possibly," said Daniel, "but I don't think Amonet would allow the Harsissus to fall into the hands of the Asgard."

"Then what about…a Stargate that the rest of the Goa'uld don't know about? I mean, the Goa'uld only know about three quarters of the gate network."

"Seems like I'll be spending the coming weeks in front of the dialing computer."

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Harry stood across from Doctor Lee with an exasperated look on his face. The reason for this emotion was lying on the table between them. A large set of plans and blueprints was rolled out and prominently displayed across the large planning table.

Dr Lee was a short man with balding brown hair and thick glasses, dressed in a lab coat he looked like your stereotypical scientist. However, Harry found that Dr Lee was almost the only other scientist on the base he could work with somewhat efficiently (the other being Major Carter of course); the others were so stuck in their preconceived mindsets of scientific theory about what can be done and what can't, that it sorely tested Harry's patience not to throttle them senseless sometimes.

Lee had brought the plans to Harry to get his opinion on their viability. There were three large A1 size pages with schematics and diagrams on them; each was marked with a codename…X301…X302 and X303.

The cause of Harry's exasperation however, was the X301 plans. Harry lifted the relevant page and showed it to Lee.

"This is the most absurd design I have ever seen."

"Well," said Dr Lee uncomfortably. "I've also questioned whether its wise to attempt such a hybridizing of technologies, but the rest of the team at Area 51 are confident they can pull it off."

"There's no point to the X301, it's a waste of effort!" said Harry, throwing the plans to the floor. "There's no way it can be a long term platform to launch an attack from. Unless they plan on getting us to steal a squadron's worth of Death Gliders for them to modify!" Dr Lee raised his hands uncomfortably in mock surrender, apparently conceding the point.

"Now…this one," said Harry, pulling the X302 plans up. "Is promising, there's just one problem."

"And that is?"

"Power," said Harry shortly. "It's ambitious I'll give them that. If they think they can build a Hyperspace Window Generator that small they'll need a lot more power than a standard engine does, due to the shortcuts they're taking in the emitter stages."

"How much more power?" asked Dr Lee wearily.

"You'll need to double the power reserves available to the X302, at the very least."

"Double," said Dr Lee with a tired sigh and rubbed his hands over his face.

"And if you're seriously considering mounting a fighter sized version of the PR7 on this thing you'll need another increase in stable power output, unless you want the fighter pilots to come out of hyperspace with powerless weapons…"

"…well aren't missiles usually used first in an engagement anyway?"

"Normally, yes," conceded Harry. "But you never know what circumstances there are in a battle."

"True," said Dr Lee. "And what about the X303?"

"Also promising," allowed Harry. "But the design needs to be refined further. Using a single fusion reactor is a bad idea, if it goes offline for some reason you need a backup. So the ship needs a primary and secondary reactor."

"Then we're talking about quite a large increase in the size of the vessel itself," said Dr Lee.

"Yes, at least four hundred meters in length," said Harry, Dr Lee's eyes widened.

"I don't know if we have the capability to build something that large."

"If you want the X303 to stand a chance against a Goa'uld mothership, there's no other choice," said Harry grimly. "The secondary reactor would power critical systems; life support, weapons, shields…though I have yet to see you come up with any designs for that. Main reactor would be tied to the Hyperdrive and the remaining systems."

The conversation was interrupted with a knock on the door. A freshly showered looking Colonel O'Neill stood smirking in the doorway, looking like the proverbial cat who ate the canary.

"Greetings Colonel," said Harry with a grin. "I take it you were successful in your mission to Natu, or as it's known to most of the people on Earth…hell."

"Oh yeah," said O'Neill, "Got Jacob Carter out of there just fine, and I think we can cross two System Lords off our list of snakeheads to worry about."

"Two?" asked Harry, rather astonished. "Who?"

"Apophis and Sokar," said O'Neill. "We got Jacob to a set of concealed transporter rings where Teal'C beamed us up just in time. The Tok'ra can take the credit for the kills though. They shot a bomb into the core of Natu, and the mothership in orbit…with our two snakeheads aboard…became a pretty big firework along with Natu itself."

"Good news," said Harry with a grin, Sokar was a major headache to the System Lord collective. With Sokar gone it would cause them to turn their attentions back to their individual struggles for power, which was exactly what Harry and the rest of the galaxy, preferred them doing.

"As Teal'C would say…_indeed_," said O'Neill, lowering his voice deeply to mimic the voice of the strong former First Prime of Apophis. "So what are you two up to?" Harry and Dr Lee stared at each other for a moment.

"I'm reviewing the X-project. The Pentagon has finally agreed to let me see what Area 51 has come up with to defend my lovely home planet from the Goa'uld," said Harry a big fake smile on his face that didn't come near his eyes.

"And?"

"Well, let's just say that we have a long way to go," said Harry with a sigh, looking at the plans.

Any further conversation was interrupted when the base alarm flared and the PA system announced an unscheduled incoming subspace path.

"Gotta go!" said O'Neill, hurrying back out of the lab they were in.

"We'll sort this out later," said Harry to Dr Lee, who nodded.

Harry caught up to O'Neill just as they both entered the control room. General Hammond and the rest of SG1 also entered the bustling room, as personnel scrambled to man their stations.

"Still no incoming signal," said the sergeant monitoring the gate screen. The gunmetal gray iris covering the mouth of the Stargate was naturally shut for this occasion, and extra defense teams appeared in the gate room itself, training their PR7s on the gate.

"All units are earthside," said the General, implying that there obviously wouldn't be a signal.

Harry narrowed his eyes at what he was seeing and sensing. The iris began to slightly flutter, as if the metal had suddenly become a curtain.

"Is it my imagination or is the iris…kinda…" said Daniel, wobbling his hand.

"It's losing integrity," said Major Carter in alarm.

"No…it's being subjected to a phased distortion field," said Harry his eyebrows contracting into an unpleasant frown. He knew of only one race that could do this. There was a slight discoloration of the iris itself quite close to the floor and of all the things to walk right through the now distorted iris…a ginger colored cat stalked onto the embarkation ramp.

"Hold your fire!" ordered the Major into the PA system, and hurried off into the gate room. Harry watched as Sam picked up the cat, which had stretched out luxuriantly onto the ramp, and cradled it to her chest. "It's Schrodinger," she announced, "it's the cat I gave to Narim of the Tollan."

"The Tollan possess the technology to walk through solid matter," stated Teal'C helpfully.

"Something, you recall, they refused to share with us," said O'Neill flatly.

The iris again became stained, but this time it was shaped distinctly as a human, and a few moments later with a hollow rippling sound, a tall man walked through; styled dark black hair and wearing gray blue pants and an elegant curved jacket with light blue shirt underneath. Harry knew Narim only as the Tollan High Councilor Omoc's apprentice; he had always followed the councilor as Harry met with Omoc a few years ago, and had often spoken in favor of Omoc's policies to Harry.

Narim pressed a button on a gauntlet around his arm and the distortion field shut down, returning the iris to normal. He looked to the control room and said, "General Hammond, I am unfamiliar with Earth protocol in these matters, so I sent Schrodinger ahead to let you know a friend was coming."

"It's all right, Narim," said the General into the PA, "the Tollan are welcome here. Units…stand down." The assembled defense teams lowered their PR7s.

The General and SG1 went down to meet with Narim, but Harry firmly remained standing where he was, observing.

"What can we do for you Narim?" asked General Hammond, breaking the man away from his cozy conversation with Major Carter.

"I am here to bring a message to you from our highest governing body, the Curia," said Narim he turned to O'Neill. "Colonel O'Neill, the Tollan Curia, request the presence of you and your team for triad." He held out a small silver information device that glowed with blue light and handed it to the Colonel.

"I feel like I'm being served," said O'Neill wearily.

The General ordered everyone to the briefing room and Harry consciously kept his expression inscrutable as Narim caught sight of him.

"Harry?" he said in surprise.

"Greetings, Narim," said Harry turning to face the Tollan. "It's been a while."

"That it has," he said shortly. "I must say, I am surprised to see you back on Earth."

"Did you really think I was going to take Omoc's advise to heart?" Harry raised a sardonic eyebrow.

"I had hoped you would see the wisdom in it," said Narim with a frown.

"Then you are as naïve as the rest of your people," said Harry narrowing his eyes. "I had hoped that you would wise up, but clearly that is not the case…"

"Whoah, whoah, easy folks," said O'Neill warily, "back to your corners."

"Is there a problem, Ambassador?" asked General Hammond with a frown, showing his displeasure at Harry's hostility toward Narim.

"None from my end, General," said Harry strongly. "I wish to hear what would cause the Tollan to come off their lofty pedestal and visit _my home_." He turned and walked up the steep rotary staircase that led directly into the briefing room and a few moments later everyone was seated the chairs around the table.

Narim got right to business. It was also visibly apparent that he was uncomfortable in Harry's presence.

"First let me explain what triad is," he said, "it's an ancient ceremony of justice, where matters of law are argued and resolved."

"So it's like a trial?" asked Daniel.

"If a tria-_l_ is where you apply the scales of justice, then yes," nodded Narim.

"So who's on trail…I mean, triad?" asked O'Neill.

"The decision the triad must reach is of great concern to an old friend of yours, he's an Abydonian by the name of Skaara." Skaara was the host to the Goa'uld Klorel, the son of Apophis.

"What?" said Daniel and O'Neill in chorus, looking astonished.

"It is he who requested your presence," said Narim.

"He's alive? He's OK?" said Daniel.

"He is well, but he does need your help for triad."

"Where's this taking place?" asked O'Neill.

"On the new homeworld, Tollana."

"But we sent you to the Nox homeworld after we rescued you," said Samantha, "and there was no Stargate on Tollana."

"The Nox and the Tollan were able to devise a way to get us there," said Narim neutrally.

"Of course you were," said O'Neill sarcastically.

"Way, way smarter than we are," said Daniel distractedly.

"Triad will begin as soon as all interested parties can be there," said Narim, "General with your permission?"

"This is really up to SG1 themselves, as this is more of a personal matter, but you'll hear no objections from me on their participation in this triad," said the General.

"Just give us a chance to gear up and we'll meet in the gate room in thirty minutes?" asked O'Neill.

"Very well," nodded Narim. SG1 stood and walked out of the briefing room to prepare. "General, the new Stargate on Tollana was built by my people and requires a special procedure to allow for incoming subspace paths to connect. If you would allow me access to your equipment I can duplicate the procedure."

"Very well, speak to the gate technician behind the dialing computer, he'll give you any help you need," said Hammond, lifting the phone and spoke briefly into it, he replaced it and said, "you may proceed."

"Thank you, General," said Narim, bowing slightly and walked down the steep stairs.

"Ambassador, a moment in my office," said Hammond, walking into his adjoining private office, Harry following in his wake, closing the door. "What was that in the control room?"

"Forgive me, General Hammond, if I seemed rather…displeased with Narim," said Harry levelly. "But the Tollan and I have a rather weighty past."

"Would you care to enlighten me as to why? Since it seems your presence here has for some reason disturbed Narim."

"The reason why Narim is disturbed, is because when I was still a friend to the Tollan, he and Omoc believed it unwise for me to ever return to Earth, fearing that I would cause the destruction of my home by sharing technology with you, and they endeavored to convince me never to return," explained Harry, his voice growing harder.

"I can imagine how I would feel," said the General.

"I also once enlisted the aid of the Tollan, this was before their original homeworld was destroyed, in defending a human civilization, the Katati, from the Goa'uld. This particular civilization had only just perfected mechanical flight, and had an Earth equivalent to circa World War One level of technology. But just as I was about to head off I received a message from the Tollan…can you guess what the message said?"

"They pulled back, and left you hanging," said the General after a while.

"You seem to have the measure of them," nodded Harry. "They withdrew their ships, stating in all their enlightened wisdom that bloodshed would not be the answer. They had adopted a non-aggression policy toward such situations. The said the Goa'uld would just come back in greater numbers to claim the planet, that it was better to let the locals become slaves…at least they would be alive that way. But the Katati refused to go quietly into the night…and they resisted as best they could. A year later the Goa'uld lost their patience with the resistance and decided it was easier to sterilize the planet from orbit."

General Hammond winced.

"Though I do admit that some of the Tollan argument has merit, the approach of keeping the peace by rolling over on your back and letting the Goa'uld walk over you is idiotic at best. If the Tollan had at least come to the defense of the Katati it would have given the Goa'uld pause in their efforts. And there is another reason why I…dislike the Tollan. For all their technology and power they are content to sit back and do nothing on their homeworld. If they were ever to put their efforts into offensive weapons and vessels then the Goa'uld would have been at least half of what they are today, and the Galaxy wouldn't be overrun with them."

"Be that as it may," said the General thoughtfully, "and I can somewhat understand your feelings in the matter, I don't want diplomatic relations between us and the Tollan to be strained."

"Don't worry, General," said Harry emphatically, "I would not do anything to jeopardize that. Though personally I feel any diplomatic relationship with the Tollan is in essence useless. They are content to sit behind their mighty ion cannons and let the rest of the Galaxy burn or be enslaved around them." Harry stood from the chair in front of the General's desk. "May I be excused General, Dr Lee is waiting for me…I'm still going over the X project with him."

"Dismissed," nodded the General, looking thoughtful.

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The next day Harry received the satisfying news he had had in a long time, in the form of the post mission debrief of SG1 after the conclusion of the Tollan triad. Harry knew he shouldn't be feeling this vindictive, but he would have given a lot to have seen the faces of the Tollan as they Goa'uld destroyed all their ion cannon emplacements simultaneously, thereby preventing the cannons from firing a single shot. It felt satisfying to know that the Tollan had just experienced a small taste of how the Katati felt.

And of all things it was the 'primitive Earthlings' that saved them. Or to be more accurate, Teal'C.

He had seen the Jaffa begin walking around and subtly inspecting the Tollan ion cannon installations, and knew instantly what was going to happen. He had even tried to warn the Tollan, who refused to think that it was possible. He then disobeyed an order from O'Neill to leave it alone (an order given under pressure from the Tollan) and approached Lya of the Nox.

Harry hardly believed that a Nox was capable of bending their own rules or 'way' as they put it. The Nox were the most fervent pacifists in the Galaxy and they were a very old race, though they were slightly younger than Harry's own race. The Nox liked everybody and wouldn't allow harm to come to any sentient life, be they evil or good, if it was within their power to prevent it.

As Harry listened to the story, he surmised that Lya must have cast a disillusionment matrix over the single ion cannon, at Teal'C's urging. The single cannon was enough. It destroyed the Death Gliders that had penetrated the atmosphere and with just two shots made the Goa'uld Ha'tak mothership in orbit (and moments from attacking the planet) become a brilliant fireball in the sky.

The other good news was that Skaara was now free from the Goa'uld Klorel. The triad was held mostly to determine who would have priority over the body of Skaara, Skaara himself or Klorel. And since Klorel needed a human host to survive, it was a sticky issue regarding Tollan law, since they did not have capital punishment.

Harry hoped the whole affair would make the Tollan come round to the reality of the Galaxy around them.

Though his pessimistic side knew that it would take a lot more than the destruction of a few ion cannons to make them see the light.

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_A/N: I've included some Ancient text font in this chapter to see if it would display on Though I doubt it will work. For those of you who think I'm being too hard on the Tollan, that's your opinion. In the context of the Stargate Universe, the Tollan were a mere footnote at best. They only allowed Skaara to be freed and even though Skaara eventually ascended even he was rather insignificant in the grand scheme of things. _

_A\N – conversation in italics is in Ancient from henceforth. Conversation in bold is in Goa'uld._


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter Eight – Maternal Instinct**

_Seaworld…_

It was night. The stars glittered like a brilliant sparkling blanket that had been thrown over the sky.

The sound of the low waves against the beach, near hypnotic, lulling all those who heard it to sleep. Two moons reflected their soft light onto the planet, giving Seaworld a near surreal atmosphere.

And in one of the idyllic beach huts a dim light glowed from the small window.

The light was coming from the screen of a laptop computer and it illuminated the unclothed form of Harry slumped in a chair with his legs hanging over the armrest, a slight frown of concentration marring his features as he stared at the screen. He had been unable to get into a deep sleep; his dreams lately had been…strange…for lack of a better word. It was always the same…a door, an endless white void flashing with a strange mist and within it Ancient text swirled and flew around in endless dimensions – the meaning of which he could faintly begin to understand before abruptly the dream ended with the vision of a tall stately looking woman, looking expectantly at him, as if waiting.

So in an attempt to distract his mind to perhaps getting some sleep he had untangled himself gently from Apollonia and pulled out a laptop he had brought with him from the SGC and started to work, but not before running a special conversion program he had loaded and suddenly everything turned to Ancient text (he found it easier to work in Ancient especially when it came to science).

A cross section appeared of the particle beam generator that had been instrumental in the return of a stranded Colonel O'Neill back to Earth.

Edora was a world forgotten by the Goa'uld, due to the fact that the naquadah mine had run dry thousands of years ago, and was populated by only a tiny agrarian society. But it was unique in that its orbit skimmed through an asteroid belt every year, and the locals were treated to spectacular display of 'falling stars'. SG1 had visited the planet and discovered substantial new deposits of naquadah in the soil, most likely due to the 'falling stars' hitting the planet every two hundred or so years. And as Murphy and the Fates would have it, another such event would occur the very next day.

SG1 had tried to evacuate everyone and two thirds of the villagers had agreed to temporarily evacuate to Earth, the rest chose to stay. However, Colonel O'Neill had been separated from the others in trying to rescue a teenage boy and before he could even hope to return to the Stargate a meteor impact hit right on top of the gate.

The result was the Stargate was buried under tons of rock and the super heated rock had melted the naquadah naturally present in the soil to form a natural iris over the mouth of the Stargate.

O'Neill had been stranded for over three months as Harry and Samantha raced to build the particle beam generator which would melt the hardened naquadah 'iris' and allow the unstable event horizon to form, which would excavate large cavity and eventually allowed Teal'C the task of going through and digging to the surface of Edora. Not long after the evacuees returned to Earth that the mining treaty had been formalized with the Edorans, and now for the first time Earth had a steady supply of naquadah to begin work on the X-project.

Harry was looking for a whole new use for the particle beam generator though…his fingers began to tap at the buttons, inputting energy equations and variations…

He didn't know for how long he had been working before he felt strong, yet still feminine hands thread through his messy hair. He couldn't help but let out a sigh of pleasure at the physical and mental presence of his wife. She began to slightly massage his scalp.

"_Struggle sleeping?_"

"_Yes,_" nodded Harry, allowing his eyes to close for a moment and relishing in the bliss of her presence for a few moments. Her hands retreated and she stepped next to his chair, the light from the screen only allowing tantalizing hints of her nude form to reach his eyes; the curve of a hip, the tip of a nipple.

"_You saw the light of our ancestors again?"_ she asked.

"_Indeed, I did_," answered Harry with a frown, he turned to look up at her. _"Have you ever seen it?_"

"_I have also seen it, yes,_" she confirmed. "_It first appeared to me a few days after Sparta was destroyed by the Goa'uld, but I have never approached that door in my mind again._"

"_Why not?_" he asked astonished that she had never revealed it to him, there were very few secrets between them due to the joining and opening of minds that they shared.

"_It frightens me,_" she said softly.

"_It frightens me too, but it's the path we must all walk in the fullness of time._"

A beeping sound suddenly erupted from within a kitbag to the side of their bed. Harry sighed wearily and stood from the chair and reached in the bag and pulled out an Asgard data pad, which had an attached subspace antenna.

"_What is it?_" asked Apollonia.

"_Subspace signal from Earth. Hmph, figures the good Major would figure out how to use my transponder to send a message_."

"_What do they say_?" she asked and walked behind him and threaded her arms around his torso, staring over his shoulder at the thin screen in his hands.

"Ab Infinitus Universum!"(1) cussed Harry with a scowl. "Apophis is still alive. That snakehead just does not know how to die."

"I thought you said he died aboard Sokar's flagship," she frowned at the screen.

"He must have managed to get to a transporter ring room before it exploded," groused Harry. "And naturally, he was in a perfect position to snatch up all of Sokar's ships and resources."

"That is…shit," said Apollonia bluntly, using an Earth swear word. Harry knew he shouldn't have let her watch that selection of movies.

"Quite, and his first act…was to attack Chulak," he said with disgust, chucking the subspace pad back into the bag. "The SGC is requesting my presence."

"Then you should go," she said, kissing his neck. "But first…" she directed him to the bed, "…I think you should lie down…"

8888888888888888888888

_SGC, Earth…_

Harry was startled as he walked into the briefing room to find General Hammond, SG1 and an old armored Jaffa seated around the table and apparently waiting for him. The Jaffa in question also had the gold encrusted snake tattoo on his forehead, clearly indicating that he had once been a First Prime of Apophis…his age and the fact that he was alive allowed Harry to draw an obvious conclusion as to his identity. Teal'C had spoken highly of the old Jaffa Master sitting at the table.

"**Tek ma te**, Master Bratac," bowed Harry. "It's an honor to finally meet the one who instructed Teal'C."

"**Tek ma te**, Ambassador Tyr," said Bratac, bowing his head slightly as Harry took a seat.

"So, what's the specific reason you summoned me?"

"We believe we may have found the location of Keb," said Daniel.

"Indeed," said Harry, his interest perked. "How?"

"Well, a combination of Ancient Egyptian legend, Master Bratac's knowledge, and by comparing the Ancient map of Stargates to the Goa'uld one," said Daniel, pointing to a computer screen that showed an enhanced MALP image. "This a picture from the planet in question."

"How can you be sure?"

"The story I've heard says that Keb is an untouched wilderness," said Master Bratac, "with great mountains and a single temple in a valley distant from the Stargate."

"If the Goa'uld are scared of Keb that would explain why they never mined this planet," said Daniel.

"If Amonet thought to hide the Harssisus child on Keb," said Teal'C. "Then Apophis could also make the assumption that she would do so."

"Well, Apophis is just nuts enough to go despite what happened to any Goa'uld in the past who set foot on Keb," commented O'Neill. "I would like some backup on this one, sir."

"SG2 will accompany you and due to the fact that we may be dealing with a big unknown that can rattle even the Goa'uld's cages, the Ambassador will go too," said General Hammond.

"As will I," said Bratac. The General nodded after a moments thought.

"Let's just hope we get there first," said Daniel worriedly.

Harry felt himself being hurled through subspace…the arching blue colored subspace path twirled in various directions…up and down, left and right, diagonally and through time and space itself. Beyond the path itself the stars of the galaxy rolled and tumbled until exactly 0.31 seconds had passed and he felt himself regaining substance and he stepped through the event horizon of Keb Stargate.

He kept his PR7 in hand and walked further away to make room for SG2, who appeared a few moments later…after which the subspace path collapsed with a flash. Colonel O'Neill, Bratac and the rest of SG1 was already waiting for them.

"Check in every thirty minutes," ordered O'Neill to the Major in command of SG2.

"Yes, sir."

"Hold the fort, Major," said O'Neill. "Ambassador, shall we go?"

Harry nodded and the group of six turned and headed in the direction of the treeline, Master Bratac and Teal'C taking point, while Harry, Sam and Daniel staggered the formation behind them and O'Neill took upon himself as rear guard.

They walked for over an hour in the valley, until they came across a small river. Teal'C and Bratac abruptly halted though when they passed close to the soft coarse sand on the riverbank.

"What've you got?" asked O'Neill as Teal'C kneeled down to examine the sand, while Bratac stood behind him. Harry caught up to see they were examining a grouping of footprints in the sand.

"A group of Jaffa passed through here recently," answered Teal'C in deep thought. "Six of them."

"Eight," corrected Bratac. "

"So we're not the first," said Harry rather ominously, scanning with his senses in all directions, yet finding no minds or energy within the immediate area. Nothing more could be interpreted from the grouping of tracks, so the group continued forwards, following the direction the tracks seemed to be coming from. It was immediately evident that the Jaffa had followed the path of the river.

They continued on until they reached another grouping of footprints.

"What is it?"

"Six of the Jaffa stopped here," announced Teal'C.

"Two went on ahead," continued Bratac, "they returned with another, a woman."

"How do you know that?" asked O'Neill. Harry felt it was a rather stupid question, considering the military skill of the Jaffa and in particular, a Jaffa Master as skilled as Bratac. But it seemed Bratac was patient with his Tau'ri allies.

"Here," said Teal'C, pointing his staff weapon at a set of footprints. "A third of the footprints are small and light. The shoe is an open toe sandal worn by Jaffa women."

"When they all met up again there was a struggle," said Bratac. "Then they headed into the forest. Each print is spread wide, they were running."

"He's good," said O'Neill, looking impressed.

"Extremely," smiled Teal'C.

"The woman may be the priestess entrusted with the child," said Bratac, before heading into the forest with the rest of them following his lead.

Inside the forest they spread out along the path of the fleeing Jaffa priestess, staring at the ground, looking for any sign or clue as to her fate. Harry found an acrid smell reaching his nose, like that of something that was totally overcooked in an oven. He stared around, hoping to find the cause when Daniel called that he found something.

It was indeed, something, three dead Jaffa bodies, all burnt to crisp. Their armor was blackened with carbon and withered down to become awfully brittle.

"This doesn't make any sense," said Sam, examining the bodies. "These bodies are burnt like nothing I've ever seen before, yet nothing in the surrounding area is even touched, almost like a directed lightning strike…"

"Or some kind of…" said O'Neill, he obviously wanted to say that it was a weapon, but Teal'C shot down his hopes.

"I've never before seen a weapon that could do such a thing," he said. But Harry was looking rather worriedly at the corpses. He could sense a faint residual power left in the corpses and it felt…familiar somehow. In the end, they counted eight dead bodies.

"Over here!" called Bratac. The group hurried to the sound of his voice beyond a copse of trees. They found him kneeling over the body of the dead Jaffa priestess they had been tracking, wearing rather beautiful robes. Bratac carefully turned the body. "She was shot in the back as she fled," he said, showing the obvious fatal wound from a staff weapon.

"So what happened here?" asked O'Neill.

"The priestess was being escorted back to the Stargate by two of the Jaffa," said Bratac. "When they met the others, she realized she was in danger. She attempted to flee; they chased her and shot her. Then someone or something attacked them."

"What about the child?" asked Daniel.

"She carried the child," said Bratac.

"How can you know that?" asked O'Neill in disbelief.

"Her hands are not bound," pointed out Teal'C, while Bratac lifted the poor woman free arms to show it.

"And they shot low," said the Master, and pointed to the wound right over the lower abdomen of the priestess.

"Then what happened to the boy?"

"That I cannot tell," said Bratac. "But they have been dead for over two days, and after they didn't return, Apophis should have sent more."

"Perhaps many more," said Teal'C darkly.

The group resumed their journey along the valley and through the forest until they broke through the dense foliage to find themselves on a high hill and there in the distance was a temple at the base of a high mountain. It reminded Harry distinctly of the Buddhist temples back on Earth; curved roofs, pagodas, everything was painted in shades of red, and high walls were built into the structure of the temple itself.

"Keb?" asked O'Neill.

"Keb," said Bratac, his eyes wide in awe.

Harry and Daniel automatically disarmed themselves and dropped their gear the moment the entered the temple's front reception garden, which was beautifully maintained as any Zen garden he had before seen on Earth. Nobody had arrived to greet them though, which was strange, considering the size of the temple itself.

"Daniel, Ambassador?" said O'Neill. "What are you doing?"

"This is a hallowed place, Colonel," said Harry. "We should not bring any instrument of destruction within its halls."

"He is correct," said Bratac, "this is sacred ground." He handed his staff and Zat gun to Teal'C. O'Neill grumbled under his breath and allowed Major Carter to unbuckle his backpack, but he would not relinquish his PR7.

"All right, you two wait here," he instructed to Teal'C and Sam. Daniel led the way by opening the beautifully polished oak door and entering. Inside was a beautiful understated room so typical of Zen architecture. Dark mahogany pillars lined the room and large scrolls of ornately scripted text adorned the walls. The room was lit with red wax candles strategically placed on each pillar and in the center of the floor was a perfectly flattened sand garden with a single candle in the middle…obviously an area for meditation.

O'Neill led them inside as they looked around. He turned around and missed the monk who had silently teleported a few feet in front of him. Harry's eyes widened at the display of power; the monk had to be a descendant of the Ancients, like he himself was one, he could feel it within the monk. The monk himself was clearly of Asian descent, wearing red Buddhist robes and short shaved hair.

"Whoah!" shouted a startled O'Neill as he caught sight of the monk. "Where did you come from?"

"I have been here for some time," said the monk calmly, his eyes glancing over them, and halting on Harry.

"No," countered O'Neill, "you weren't in here when we just came in."

"Here is everywhere you are," said the monk in turn.

"Excuse me?"

Daniel decided to come to his friend's rescue and began introducing everyone. "My name is Daniel Jackson, this is Jack O'Neill, Bratac and Harry. We're peaceful explorers from a place called Earth."

"Do you seek oneness with Desala?" asked the monk. The name struck a chord within Harry…in his dreams…the stately looking woman.

"I know that," said Daniel, "Desala, it sounds African…"

"Desala is everything, everywhere…"said the monk enigmatically.

"Nature," announced Daniel.

"The Universe itself," countered Harry. The monk smiled and nodded at Harry.

"Put no barriers between you and where you are," advised the monk.

"He wishes us to remove our shoes," said Harry with a smile in turn and also nodded at the monk. The AI of his chromesuit reacted to his desire and a moment later it retreated to reveal his bare feet. Harry winced slightly at the coldness of the floor. Daniel and Bratac also began removing their shoes, though it was a slightly longer process. Harry walked onto the sand garden and sat opposite the candle, folding his legs in a half-lotus position; Daniel and Bratac joined him at his side.

"Yeaahhh," said O'Neill to the monk, "I've been walking a ways today…"

"Your journey is only beginning," said the monk, amusement dancing in his eyes.

"I'm just saying I'll be doing us a favor if I keep this babies on," said O'Neill, a condescending smirk playing on his face.

"When the mind is enlightened, the spirit is free, the body matters not," said the monk and joined the others in lotus positions in the sand garden.

"Here's an idea," said O'Neill to the others, as if it should've been painfully obvious, "let's ask him if the boy is here." Daniel looked at him for a moment and turned back to the monk.

"We've come here looking for a boy," said Daniel.

"Lightning flashes, sparks shower, in one blink of your eyes you've missed seeing it," said the monk. Harry immediately nodded, the message of the monk was clear, at least to his mind.

"Lightning, you say?" asked O'Neill from the side. The monk turned his head to address him.

"I only know that a snowflake cannot exist in a storm of fire." Harry interpreted it to mean that the boy was the snowflake and could not have survived in the hands of fire, ie. The Goa'uld.

"What?" asked O'Neill looking baffled.

"Jack," said Daniel, shushing the Colonel.

"You know me," said O'Neill, "I'm a huge fan of subtlety, but that was downright encryptic."

"Sorry, don't worry about him," said Daniel to the monk, gesturing to continue.

"The sun is warm, the wind is wild, and the grass is green along the shores, here no bull can hide." Harry understood that to mean that everything was seen and taken cognizance of on this planet by someone, whom…he did not know.

"I don't know about that," said O'Neill.

"Jack, he's speaking in Zen coombs," said Daniel, looking fascinated. "Whatever theology he follows may be the original basis for Buddhism on Earth."

"Well, I'll be sure to give the Dalai Lama back home a call as soon as we get back," he said sarcastically. "But for now, how about _why _we came here."

"He's right," said Daniel looking distracted, but then asked, "Is there a child here?"

"There is a child in all of us," said the monk.

"Oh come on," said O'Neill exasperatedly.

"He means a real child, of flesh and bones," said Bratac.

"Those who seek oneness, find all that they seek." Bratac nodded that he understood.

"I think that this is going to take a while," said Daniel.

"Really? What gives you that idea?" said O'Neill sarcastically and walked out of the room.

The monk turned to Bratac.

"Within you is a being whose heart knows only darkness."

"Yes," nodded Bratac, obviously referring to the larval Goa'uld within him.

"You must renounce such evil if you want to achieve oneness with Oma Desala."

The name again resounded within Harry's mind…and he finally latched on to its association. His dreams…the woman, she was Oma Desala.

"Oma? What does that mean?" asked Daniel.

"Words cannot express such things, speech cannot convey the spirit, swayed by words one is lost, one cannot carry darkness on the great path," the stared meaningfully at Bratac's abdomen, where his symbiote pouch was.

"If I remove the symbiote within me, I will die," said Bratac earnestly.

"You cannot start the journey with it inside you."

"So a Jaffa cannot seek oneness before he is willing to die," concluded Bratac.

"When the mind is free, the body is no longer required." Bratac looked troubled and stared at the sand next to him. "I sense you are not ready to become one with Oma Desala."

"I am not yet ready to die," said Bratac. "But I take solace in the fact that journey is ahead of me."

Bratac nodded his thanks and sensed that his time was up, so he stood and gathered his boots and left. The monk turned to Harry.

"Oma Desala is calling to you…you have felt it."

"Indeed," said Harry.

"Stand and walk where the wind blows, there you will find oneness."

Harry thought for a moment then nodded and stood, opening his perceptions to the true universe around him…he felt his feet walking…yet it was almost as if he wasn't walking. He walked straight towards one of the walls in the room and without even hesitating walked through it.

"What just happened?" asked Daniel in confusion.

"The path to oneness is unique for everyone and not meant for others to know."

88888888888888888888888888888

Harry found himself in the now familiar white void of his dreams…all around him mist flowed ethereally and Ancient text drifted past and filled the void in infinite meanings and combinations. It was so powerful and overwhelming, yet at the same time comforting and soft as if he was in a mother's embrace.

"Harry Potter."

Harry turned to face the voice and out of the mist came the same stately looking woman he had been seeing in his dreams. Understanding flashed in his mind.

"Oma Desala."

"Yes," said Oma, looking delighted. "I must say I have been looking forward to this day for a very long time."

"Meeting me?"

"Oh indeed," she said.

"Why?"

"Because you are the last of us, as we were meant to be, to come from the secluded community of Alterans still living on Earth," said Oma.

"You're also an Alteran," stated Harry, as the knowledge flowed freely into his mind.

"Of course," she said, as if it should have been obvious. "Long, long ago, a plague was ravaging the Galaxy. In an effort to contain it…we shut down the Stargate network, but it was too late for countless worlds across this galaxy. So…to preserve ourselves, we learned to ascend to a higher plane of existence…and wiped the slate clean, so to speak. We were forced to eradicate all life in this galaxy to rid it of the plague…and afterward, we seeded the building blocks of life once more. However, there were some of us that did not want to ascend, so they left this galaxy for another. Of what transpired there is not for me to reveal, but suffice it to say, those Alterans were forced to return to Earth and it is from them…Harry Potter, that you are descended."

"Fascinating," said Harry with a frown. "So the wizarding communities are actually the descendants of Alterans interbreeding with humans of the Tau'ri."

"Yes," she nodded. "However, due to genetics passed down the generations, you are the first pure Alteran born in nearly a thousand years." She gazed at Harry for a moment. "Are you aware of the events your duplicate is involved in?"

"The Asgard have been keeping tabs on him," said Harry. "The last report, stated that my clone is on a quest of some sort to find artifacts of some significance for the purpose of defeating the dark wizard that killed…our parents."

"Yes," said Oma, her face contorting in disgust. "The objects themselves are pieces of the soul of this Tom Riddle. As long as they remain on your plane of existence…"

"…he can't be killed," said Harry.

"Your clone is fairing remarkably well, but understand this Harry, while he may be able to destroy the pieces of Riddle's soul, he cannot defeat Riddle himself…that is your task for when the time is right."

"And when will that be?"

"You will know when the time is right," said Oma enigmatically. "But let us turn to more immediate matters that concern you specifically. You have begun to slowly unlock your potential as an Alteran…in fact, this place we are in," she gestured her arms around them, "is not of my making, but is within your own mind."

Harry looked around him in astonishment and brushed his hands over a part of mist that was just gusting past and he felt the knowledge absorb into him instantly…in this case it was the minor minutia of high energy physics that was nothing like he had ever learned from the Asgard.

"I see what you mean," said Harry in awe.

"But beware," said Oma, "the more time you spend here…the more you understand…the more you will want to transcend your current corporeal plane of existence to mine. And your journey is but beginning."

At this moment the monk appeared in the void of white.

"Oma," he said in greeting bowing to her. "The Goa'uld have arrived. One ship has landed and over two thousand Jaffa make their approach."

"I know," said Oma, "they come to claim the child. Have you set Daniel Jackson on his path?"

"Yes," he bowed again.

"Then I must go and meet him, and show him the truth," said Oma. She turned to Harry again. "We will meet again Harry Potter. You have done well so far, keep to the path, and do not stray." She stepped back and disappeared from view.

"What truth is she talking about?" asked Harry of the monk.

"That despite his honest goal of finding the boy, that he cannot hope to protect it, only Oma can. Apophis will scour the galaxy for the child and to take the child back to Earth will be insuring its destruction; despite the protection of the Asgard."

"Apophis is crazy enough to send his whole fleet and call the Asgard bluff if that were to happen," said Harry. The monk nodded.

"Now, it is time I walk the path," said the monk, "I look forward to the day we meet again Harry Potter." He bowed and disappeared. Harry sighed and closed his eyes and with a will of resolve pulled his mind out of the Infinite Universe…

He opened his eyes to find he was back in the meditation room. Just in time to see Daniel walk out of the wall he had originally entered.

"Harry? Where were you?"

"The path," said Harry enigmatically. Daniel frowned for a moment, but understanding appeared in his eyes. "And you?"

"The path."

It was at that moment that the sickening all to familiar sound of a staff weapon being fired and hitting somebody reached their ears. Harry and Daniel rushed out of the door only to see that it was the monk who had been killed for standing in the way of the large group of Jaffa who had come to claim the child. The Jaffa wore the burnt red armor of Sokar and had lamps for illumination, as night had fallen…Harry had no idea so much time had passed.

"No!" shouted Daniel in despair, at the sight of the monk.

"Wait, Daniel!" said Harry and rushed to pull him back.

"Drop your weapons!" shouted O'Neill as the rest of the team popped up from cover to bring PR7s and staff weapons to bear. "Do it!" The Jaffa commander refused to back down.

"Drop your weapons," said Harry calmly.

"You heard him!" shouted O'Neill.

"I meant you, Colonel, drop your weapons," said Harry turning to Teal'C, Sam and Bratac. "All of you."

"What?"

"The reason why the Goa'uld fear Keb is still here," said Harry.

"The aliens, Jack," said Daniel. "The ones I thought had left…they're still here. All those things I thought I could do…it was them. And you do not want to fool with them."

"Sir, if we put down our weapons, we're as good as dead," advised Sam, staring down her PR7 at the Jaffa.

"You are outnumbered and surrounded," said the Jaffa commanded. "You are dead if you do not."

"Jack, if you're ever going to trust me, now is the time," said Daniel confidently, keeping his hands in air in a gesture of surrender.

"You must do it," said Bratac, who after a moment of consideration, lowered his staff, Teal'C following. O'Neill, with extremely reluctance, unslung his weapon and placed on the ground, Sam also doing so.

"Kill them," ordered the Jaffa commander. Staff blasts rang out from the group of Jaffa, screaming with lethal precision towards all of them. Harry stood unflinchingly in faith and trust as the orange energy came towards him…which started to slow down and eventually an ethereal mist drifted past and intercepted it…all of the blasts were stopped before they could even come near any members of the team. Lightning began to ominously flash in the skies above.

"Bye," said Daniel sadly, to the Jaffa.

A bolt of lightning flashed down into the garden and struck the Jaffa commander, who screamed in pain and agony…the lightning arced in a chain along the column of Jaffa and their screams were added into the mix. All of them fell to the ground…dead. Two Death Gliders that had just made their run over the temple was attacked by lightning as well and was destroyed instantly.

As the last Jaffa died, Harry could see multiple lightning strikes in the distance and he knew that Oma was busy destroying the Ha'tak mothership that had landed.

O'Neill and Sam came out of hiding, picking up their PR7s and walked forward.

"Well, that was cool," said O'Neill. "Ouch," he said staring at the dead Jaffa, who was now also burnt to a crisp, smoke still flitted over their bodies.

The dead body of the monk drew their attention now as it began to abruptly glow with a white ethereal light and soon a being of pure energy arose…the clothes of monk fell empty as the body disappeared. The being had multiple extensions of energy that coalesced like tentacles around it and it moved through the air as if it was in water. The ascended being rose into the air and disappeared from view.

Another ascended being appeared from the meditation room and approached them. Teal'C and Bratac were filled with awe at the sight and bowed their heads in respect. The being coalesced itself until the now familiar face of Oma appeared and within her 'arms' she cradled the Harsissus child; she approached Harry and Daniel.

"You're leaving," said Daniel.

"She has to," said Harry. "As long as the Goa'uld know that the child is here, they will keep coming."

"I'll see both of you again, someday, right?" asked Daniel with a smile. Oma smiled and graced an ethereal hand on Daniel's cheek and he had his answer. She turned to Harry and nodded.

"_Be careful Harry_." She spoke directly into his mind. "_And take care of your wife. Do not force her upon the path…she will find her own way._"

"_I understand._"

Oma decoalesced her form and the child disappeared from view and the ascended being flew down the garden and out of the temple.

"I take it, that was the Harsissus child she was holding," said Sam.

"Yes," said Harry.

"I thought we needed that kid," said O'Neill. "We are just going to let her…"

Harry and Daniel shot a sharp glance at the Colonel and he seemed to understand, of course, what Oma had just done was fresh in his mind.

"No choice, huh?"

"Exactly," said Daniel. The radio crackled as Major Coburn's voice came through.

"Colonel, backup has arrived."

"Take your time, we're secure," said O'Neill in reply.

"Sir, the Stargate just activated and there is a bright light approaching our postion."

"Do not engage!" said O'Neill urgently. "I repeat do not engage. Get out of the way. In fact, I'm ordering you all to put your weapons down until that bright light has gone through the Stargate, understood?"

"Yes, sir!"

It was a tense few moments until Major Coburn radioed that Oma had gone through the gate.

"You two all right?" asked O'Neill, staring at a distracted Harry and Daniel.

"Fine," said Harry automatically, his mind still rather trying to come to grips with the white void of the Infinite Universe that was within him. Daniel just nodded.

"Let's go home."

_A\N: Some of you have wondered what was going on with clone!Harry, I hope I've satisfied you somewhat. Stay tuned…next up…the Replicators_

_(1) I invented a curse Harry could use in Alteran…Ab Infinitus Universum…closest translation is 'By the Infinite Universe!'._


	9. Chapter 9

_**Chapter Nine – Nemesis**_

_SGC, Earth…_

The Infirmary within the SGC base at Cheyenne Mountain was probably the most advanced medical facility on the planet. Medical applications for technologies brought through the Stargate find themselves tested and evaluated here first before it is sent on to Area 51 to begin long-term research and study. It is also where any medical related emergency related to Gate travel is diagnosed and treated by the best health care practitioners in the military. It is also the first line of defense with regards to any diseases brought back by personnel going off world.

In charge, was Doctor Captain Janet Frasier; a small but nonetheless beautiful well figured woman, who more than made up for her lack of height by the sheer force of her personality. Colonel O'Neill liked to refer to her as a 'Napoleonic Power Monger' within her medical domain, as her word was as good as law when it came to medical issues affecting the SGC. She could even 'technically' take command of the entire base if the situation warranted it. The Doctors, nurses and orderlies under her, are her personal little army, always ready to spring into action should the base be compromised due to a contagion.

Harry entered Doctor Frasier's domain with some amount of trepidation. He had to be very cautious when the good Doctor ran her periodic health screenings that he did not…seem above the ordinary, so to speak. In this case, he was rather blessed with the fact that Earth medical science had not yet evolved to the point where they could accurately point to a genetic marker and say 'that does this'. As such he could freely give blood samples for testing. However, it was when any sort of MRI, Cat or EEG scan was done of his brain that he had to consciously suppress his Alteran nature. It was something that Alteran's had long ago learned to do when they wanted to blend in to relatively technologically advanced human societies to observe them.

But, for all the advanced nature of the medicine in the SGC, it could still not predict that Daniel Jackson would suddenly get an infected appendix and had to have it operated. Resulting in a week of downtime for SG1.

Harry approached the bed where Daniel was laying staring up into the ceiling and looking really bored. He was also fidgeting from the occasional stabbing pain coming from the wounded area.

"Aveom, Daniel," said Harry, with a grin, speaking in Alteran. He had been teaching Daniel the spoken version of Ancient for the past few weeks. Daniel could before only work from written Alteran and eventually derive a sound association and dialect, but Harry had offered to teach him when he saw how much he struggled in some of his translations.

"_Greetings, Harry_," said Daniel automatically.

"_How are you feeling?_"

"_Ummm…painless_…no…_I mean I'm still in a bit of pain_," he replied.

"_You should be able to leave in about a week,_" stated Harry.

"_Tell me why can't you use the Goa'uld healing device on me?_" he asked with a wince. "_Doctor Frasier shot down the idea when I mentioned it to her_."

"_Sometimes it is better to let nature take its course,"_ said Harry looking apologetic. "_The hand healing device is actually a tiny version of a sarcophagus, and you've been through a true sarcophagus twice already…that's one time too many._"

"_Yeah, I guess,_" said Daniel.

"_Anyway, I came by to give you this_," Harry handed a thick leather bound book to him, "_my notes from when I learned Ancient from the Asgard_. _Should keep you from counting the tiles in the roof too much_."

"_Thanks_," said Daniel, eagerly opening the book.

"Take it easy, Ok?"

Harry walked out of the Infirmary and headed back to the laboratory that he and Sam shared. Though it was initially only her laboratory, she had made some space concessions when it became apparent just how much Harry could contribute…and of course, she wanted to be able to observe when Harry was doing anything at all, just in case she sprang upon a new theory or idea and wanted him to help with.

When he entered he saw her staring at a whiteboard with a frown on her face. Harry had drawn an incomplete idea for a new Naquadah reactor sub-assembly on the board, and of course, his labels were done in Alteran.

"Hey," greeted Sam, absentmindedly, staring hard at the whiteboard.

"Trying to solve my problem, heh?" said Harry with a chuckle.

"Trying being the operative word," she said with a sigh. "I wish I had Daniel's affinity for language, I can't make heads or tails of this…just why do you work in the Ancient language?"

"That's like asking why did people stop using Old Shakespearean English in late seventeenth century," said Harry with a grin.

"Oh, so you're saying modern English just doesn't have the vernacular yet to describe some of the science you're working with," she deduced.

"Exactly," he said, "but I will attempt to explain it…the current Naquadah reactor type that you are using is still based off the original Orbanian design; its efficient and powerful, but not yet powerful enough for the purposes of the X-project. The locus for this idea came from Doctor Lee…tell me…have you seen that new movie that's been all the rave lately."

"Ummm…oh yeah, the Matrix? Yes, it's quite good, though a bit too surreal for my tastes…"

"Yes," interrupted Harry trying to keep on topic. "A matrix…define it for me please?"

"That's easy, it's an interconnected system of units…" she trailed off staring at the whiteboard. Harry had drawn a three dimensional model of a cube, and at each intersection of the lines of the cube was a sphere, more spheres were drawn in the center of each square that made up the cube, which was in turn interconnected with all the neighboring spheres. "A Naquadah reactor matrix…"

"Exactly," said Harry with a big grin. "I'm working on the calculations at the moment…"

"Hello folks!" came an awfully cheerful voice. Harry and Sam turned to find Jack O'Neill in civilian clothes consisting of a leather jacket, white shirt and light brown pants, he was obviously getting ready to leave the base, to take a much needed (in his opinion at least) vacation. "Watcha doin?"

"Well, I was originally going to do a detailed analysis of the decay rate of naquadah in the reactor, but then Harry showed me this idea that Dr Lee thought up and…"

"Uh-uh," said Jack, shaking his head to stop her, he obviously sensed the technobabble that he wouldn't understand in a million years about to be heaped onto him. "I'm on vacation."

"Yes, sir," said Sam with a tiny grin.

"So are you both, by the way," he added.

"I know," said Sam. "And I'm pretty sure Harry knows too, but he's stumbled onto something rather big here. And it's not as if I'm happy that Daniel is in excruciating pain or anything, it's just that I've been looking forward to this research for some time."

"You know maybe it's just me," said Jack, "but I always thought that when someone got some leave, one actually…left." Harry shook his head in amusement and added another line to the energy equation on the whiteboard. "Daniel's recouping, Teal'C is off visiting his kid somewhere out there…personally I have a date with a little lake in Minnesota where the Bass grow," he raised his arms and hands wide apart, "…that big."

"Really?" said Sam, with a tiny hint of sarcasm.

"Oh yes!"

"What I'm describing here Carter involves a very special element," said Jack with an expectant look on his face.

"This," she pointed at the reactor and whiteboard, "is fun to me, sir."

"Well, if playing with your little reactor and math equations is more fun than enjoying the natural beauty and wonder of Northern Minnesota, there's not much I can do."

"Was that an invitation, sir?" asked Sam dubiously. Harry had to bite his cheek to keep from breaking out in a grin. Sam and Jack out on a date…now there was something awkward, a relationship between a CO and his 2IC, not exactly something that the armed forces sing praises about.

"Nothing wrong with that, is there?" he asked nonchalantly. "Two co-workers…friends, if you will, fishing? It'll be fun."

"Wow," said Sam, grinning and having to stare at the desk from breaking out into laughter. "I appreciate the offer sir, sounds great," she looked up again, "but I should…"

"No sweat," said Jack dismissively. "See you in a week," he began to walk out of the lab," and by all means…have fun!"

When Jack was gone Harry couldn't help but let out a snort of suppressed laughter. "Do you even know how to fish, Major?"

"I can count on one hand the times I've gone with my father," said Sam. "Anyway, I think I better go after him…I don't want him to get the wrong impression…"

"And what impression do you want him to have, Major?" asked Harry teasingly, twinkles in his eyes. Sam spluttered in incomprehension before deciding that retreat was the better part of valor in the conversation and hurried out of the lab after her CO.

Harry shook his head in amusement and turned back to the whiteboard. He held the marker above the board…_this equation just doesn't want to factor out, dammit_…he thought…just as he was about to scribble a correction he felt the world around him being engulfed in white light and the familiar hum of an Asgard transporter beam.

Harry blinked in surprise and found himself standing in front of a large curved window that overlooked the marble blue and white of Earth. He could hear the familiar hum of an Asgard ship behind him, a look to his right also confirmed that he was not alone. Jack was standing next to him still entranced by the view of Earth.

"Colonel," said Harry.

"Yes, what?" he snapped, "oh, you got snatched up too, heh?"

"Indeed," said Harry and turned around in confusion. They had been beamed into a t-junction corridor quite far away from where he knew the bridge and other vital systems to be…but why? "Let's try to find Thor, shall we, this is most definitely his ship."

Harry and Jack walked down the junction cautiously, looking down other corridors that led if other directions. Eventually they saw a half open door that flashed occasionally with a blue light and strange whirring mechanical sounds reached their ears.

Before they could even get near the door however, the source of the sounds appeared and Harry gasped in realization. Approaching them were about nine mechanical-looking bug like machines that stood only about half a foot off the ground, they were colored in a neon purple, and seemed to be composed of numerous individual identical blocks that formed an approximation of an insect shape.

"What the hell?" said Jack in astonishment.

"Shit! Get against the wall and don't move!" said Harry and pushed Jack against the wall and put his own back to the wall not a moment later.

The mechanical bugs were now joined by numerous others and scurried forward relentlessly along the ground towards the point where both he and Jack had transported. A few of the bugs decided to crawl along the walls and right over Harry, who grabbed it and flung it down the corridor towards the transport site. Finally the last of them passed and clustered to the window…before finally finding nothing and the swarm went in various directions again.

"This is bad, very bad," said Harry worriedly.

"What was that?"

"You recall that enemy that's worse than the Goa'uld that Thor and I have hinted about," said Harry with a sigh. "Well, you've just met them."

"Those…technobugs are worse…how?"

"The 'technobugs' as you so eloquently put it, are _the_ enemy of the Asgard. We call them…Replicators. Thor's ship must have become infested with them in a recent battle."

"Correct deduction, Tyr," came Thor's voice from the PA system of the ship. "I am in the port forward auxiliary control room…we must hurry."

"This way," said Harry, gesturing for Jack to follow and they ran down a corridor turning left and took another two rights before finally approaching a solid neutronium door. Harry touched the jewel control on the side and the door parted to reveal the large control room with a high ceiling and strangely enough only two control pedestals and a portable Asgard biobed upon which Thor himself was laid out.

"Thor!" said Harry in alarm, the Asgard was very pale. He ran over to biobed and immediately consulted the readings.

"Are you ok, Thor?" said Jack, looking astonished at the Asgard's condition.

"I…am dying," said Thor weakly.

"What happened?"

"It is, as you humans say, a long story," said Thor droningly. "Tyr?"

"Yes, Thor?" said Harry, standing next to the biobed.

"Information you need are in the stones…you must…destroy the ship, prevent the Replicators from reaching…Earth…forgive me…" and with that the small Asgard fell into unconsciouness.

Jack placed a palm on Thor's chest and was relived to find breathing. "So any idea just how we are going to destroy this ship?" Harry walked over to one of the control pedestals and started to move the jewels and type rapidly. A holographic screen appeared ahead and started to scroll with information written in Asgard.

"Well, it seems," said Harry, frowning at the display. "That when the ship became infested, the Replicators learned of Earth from the _Beliskner_'s computer. They then set a course to come here. The crew was transported off by Thor before they left the Ida Galaxy, and then he destroyed the outgoing transporter technology to stop the Replicators from simply beaming themselves onto Earth once they arrived."

"Sooo…that means we're stuck here?"

"In essence…yes," said Harry mock cheerfully. "And it gets even better…I can think of no safe and reliable way to destroy this ship."

"What?" asked Jack incredulously. "You're supposed to be all…'Asgardian' and you have no idea how to destroy this ship."

"I do have an idea, its just not safe," said Harry patiently.

"Well, what is it?"

"No amount of conventional explosives, even placed strategically throughout the ship will destroy it, as the _Beliskner_ is equipped with dampening fields which activate in the case of internal explosions. The only thing powerful enough to overwhelm the dampening fields is a fusion bomb."

"There is no way we are setting off a fusion bomb," said Jack flatly. "The EMP will fry every satellite on this side of the globe, not to mention computers on the ground."

"I realize that, Colonel," snapped Harry. "But it's only weapon Earth has that will do the job."

"Doesn't this ship have a self-destruct?"

"No," sighed Harry. "If there is one failing the Asgard have, then it's their overconfidence in their own technology. They just don't think it would be possible for the need to ever arise to blow up one of their own ships."

"Urgghhh, typical," said Jack rolling his eyes. "Well, when we get out of this, I'm going to have a heart to heart with Thor about that. Listen, I'm sure you'll figure something out with conventional explosives, the BF8 is enhanced with naquadah, it should give a lot more bang than usual."

"Fine," sighed Harry, "I think we better appraise the SGC of the situation."

"How?"

"You see that white glowing circle in the center of the floor," said Harry, turning back to the pedestal and pressing controls faster than Jack could follow. "Step into it." Jack frowned for a moment uncertainly but then did as instructed. "OK, I'm going to project a living image of yourself directly into the briefing room, it'll interface directly with your mind and it will feel as if you're actually standing in the briefing room, ready?"

"Cool, go for it," said Jack, rubbing his hands together

A soft white glow encompassed Jack from the floor and he started as his mind was linked to the holographic image being projected into the briefing room of the SGC. It was just in time it seemed. Teal'C had apparently arrived back, and he, General Hammond and Sam were sitting at the table discussing what apparently the Asgard were up to by yanking Harry and Jack out of the SGC.

"Sir?" said Sam in astonishment.

"Ah, General, Teal'C, Carter, there you are," he said shaking his head, "this one weird hologram."

"What's going on?" she asked.

"Well. I need two SPAS-12s, a BF8, ten pounds of PBX and two USASs (semi-automatic shotgun), at the…where Ambassador?…oh, base of the Stargate in ten minutes."

"That's a lot of explosives, sir," stated Sam dubiously.

"May I ask why?" said General Hammond.

"Well, basically, Thor's ship has been overrun by a bunch of nasty technobugs," said Jack ruefully.

"Were the Asgard not able to defeat them?" asked Teal'C.

"Nope," said Jack.

"So, sir, are you saying that these bugs are technological?"

"Yeah, apparently they plan to land the ship and infest Earth," said Jack darkly. "According to the Ambassador, that would be a very bad thing."

"So what are you going to do?" asked the General.

"Destroy the ship, somehow," said Jack nonchalantly.

"Where's Thor?"

"He's here," affirmed Jack. "Though not feeling too well."

"Well, we can be ready to go in ten minutes, the Ambassador can transport us up there…"

"Thank you, Carter, but that's not going to happen," said Jack resolutely. "We can beam stuff up, but the beaming down gadget was destroyed by Thor to keep the bugs contained within the ship for as long as possible."

"But sir, if you and the Ambassador can't get off the ship…" began Sam with a worried frown on her face.

"Yeah, we know…look, my time is almost up here…have everything ready to go in ten minutes," ordered Jack. "Wish us luck."

"Sir…" said Sam, but was interrupted.

"That's an order, Carter, and it's final."

"Good luck, Colonel," said General Hammond with a worried frown.

Jack stepped out of the circle and Harry shut down the hologram communicator.

"So…" said Jack, rubbing his hands together. "Any ideas yet?"

"Not yet, but something will come to me," said Harry with a frown. "Right now, let's just focus on getting equipped, unless we plan to scribble the Replicators to death," Harry threw the whiteboard marker, which he had put in the pocket of his chromesuit, away, and began to type in a command sequence for the transporter. "Tell me, Colonel, how did you know that the PR7s wouldn't work against the Replicators?"

"They don't?" asked Jack with a frown.

"No," said Harry, "Replicators are able to adapt themselves to harmlessly absorb any form of energy based weapon."

"I just thought that shotguns are the best weapons to use indoors," said Jack, shrugging.

"Ok," said Harry, stepping away from the pedestal, "I've programmed the transport sequence. Now since the replicators are attracted to the energy pulse of the transporter, we're going to have to grab the gear and get out of there as quickly as possible."

"Got it," nodded Jack. Harry pressed the appropriate symbol on the pedestal and ran out of the control room, with Jack following in his wake. They turned right, followed a curving corridor and turned left, went down that corridor, and eventually arrived the appropriate cargo hold. Harry opened the door, and he and Jack stepped in, halting a few feet from the door to give the equipment enough room to materialize. A few seconds passed…and then multiple columns of light of various height appeared in front of them.

The equipment appeared, in addition to a fully geared up Sam and Teal'C. Harry sighed in frustration.

"Dammit! I gave you people a direct order!" snapped Jack.

"General Hammond, overruled you, sir," said Sam, handing Jack a SPAS-12 pump action shotgun and combat vest. "We have a way off the ship."

"But we do not have time for a chat," stated Harry, grabbing the proffered USAS and combat vest from Teal'C and putting it on. "The Replicators will have detected the transport and are on their way. Grab everything you can and follow me." Harry picked up the heavy case which stored the BF8, while Jack and Teal'C carried a largo cargo cylinder between them and Sam picked up the case full of PBX explosive. They had no choice but to leave the second cargo cylinder behind.

It was just as they cleared the cargo hold that the replicators began to swarm into it.

Jack pushed the jewel to close the door behind them, but four replicators had managed to get into the corridor before it close. The replicators twittered menacingly at them and Teal'C raised a Zat gun and fired. The coiling blue energy merely pushed back the replicator he had been aiming at. Teal'C fired twice more, again to no effect.

Harry put the BF8 canister on the floor and hefted the USAS and fired two shots in quick succession. The replicators exploded into their constituent blocks. Jack also fired two shots with his SPAS, the last two replicators also exploded.

Teal'C had gotten rid of his Zat gun and now also sported a SPAS shotgun, just as two replicators reformed themselves out of the mass of exploded blocks. Jack and Teal'C's shotguns barked once and both replicators exploded again…they waited…the blocks remained inert.

"Well, it seems that normal projectile weapons work like a charm," commented Harry. They picked up their equipment again and followed Harry's lead through the ship, at a considerably slower pace.

They eventually returned to the auxiliary control room dumping the equipment along the sides of the room to find that Thor was awake again.

"Hey, Thor, good to see you haven't left us yet," said Harry with a happy grin. Thor cocked his head to look at Sam and Teal'C.

"Why did you bring them?" he asked weakly.

"They invited themselves," shrugged Harry. "But I'm looking forward to hearing why they would willingly choose to come."

"We believed we could be of assistance," said Teal'C stoically.

"Now you will all die," said Thor sadly.

"Actually, we don't think so," said Sam. "Sir, there's a shuttle prepping on the launch pad, if we can transmit the co-ordinates to NASA, they can be here in a matter of hours. We also brought space suits, in case an EVA is required."

"This pod I am in," said Thor, "can generate an anti-gravity field, making it easy to move."

"Does this ship have an airlock?"

"Yes," said Thor.

"But we first have get a viable idea for destroying the ship, which I have no idea yet how to do," said Harry, he turned to Sam, "maybe it's good that you came after all. Your intellectual presence is of benefit to my own." Sam seemed flattered at the complement. So Harry explained again about the dampening fields.

"I think you must show Samantha Carter the technical specifications of the ship," suggested Thor. "Between the two of you, I'm sure you can solve this dilemma."

"Ok," said Harry, gesturing for Sam to follow him to the control pedestal. Harry moved a jewel with his left hand, while his right tapped Asgard symbols at breakneck speeds. The holographic screen flared to life and graphic of the _Beliskner_ appeared, which became transparent and three giant engines that spanned the length of the ship was highlighted. "All Asgard ships of this class are powered by three neutrino-ion generators, they each deliver about oh…about a hundred thousand terawatts of energy per second…"

Sam looked duly impressed.

It took Harry almost half an hour to get Sam up to speed on the Beliskner's systems to her own satisfaction. And it seemed that even she was coming up empty as to a means to use normal explosives to destroy the ship, even though she thought of a few new suggestions, but Thor shot down each suggestion, mentioning some or other safeguard that would kick in and protect the ship.

"Let's try a different approach," stated Sam, turning to Thor, "tell me anything you can about the Replicators?"

"They were discovered on an isolated planet in our home galaxy, some time ago, the creators were not present," said Thor.

"Most likely destroyed by their own creation," commented Teal'C.

"The Replicators were brought aboard an Asgard ship, for study, before the danger could be fully comprehended."

"We do that all the time," said Jack ruefully. "Kind of expected more from you guys."

"Overconfidence in our technology has been our undoing," said Thor, "the entities learned from the very means that were employed to stop them. They have become a plague on our galaxy, that is annihilating everything in its path."

"Why haven't they landed the ship already?" asked Jack.

"Their odds for survival in a new environment, depend on numbers, they are currently feeding off the ship and replicating," answered Thor.

"You're saying they're actually eating the ship," said Sam incredulously.

"They are ingesting the alloys, yes, and they will continue until they risk compromising the integrity of the hull. Then they will land, in search for more raw materials."

"How intelligent are they?"

"Their capacity for learning is great," said Thor darkly, "each entity is capable of individual behaviour. Yet, they all act, with a common purpose."

"Which is?" asked Jack.

"Self replication."

"And there does not appear to be a way to stop them," said Teal'C with a raised eyebrow.

"Perhaps there is," said Harry thoughtfully. "The only weakness that I can think of, the only weakness that an Asgard ship has in fact, is that the hull cannot withstand extremely high temperatures."

"You serious?" said Jack in askance. "All this technology and this ship can't take heat?" Harry nodded.

"Yes! That's it," said Sam snapping her fingers. "When the replicators try to land the ship we just have to alter its trajectory so that it comes in at too steep an angle, and make it an uncontrolled re-entry."

"We would have to gain control of the navigational computer to do that, and it is located on the bridge," said Harry. "An area that is likely to be swarming with Replicators."

"How would you know?" asked Jack with a sigh.

"All computer command pathways for the ship lead there, there would have to be Replicators there interfacing with the systems…how else could they have piloted the ship to Earth. However, I think the Replicators should have left the cargo bay where our remaining equipment is located, if you and Teal'C can go and get it, the Major, Thor and I will work on another way of disabling the ship's navigation."

"Will the Replicators not have consumed our equipment?" asked Teal'C stoically.

"No," said Thor. "The Replicators only consume and learn from that which is new and more advanced than themselves."

"Ok," said Jack, hefting his shotgun, "let's go T."

For the twenty minutes that Jack and Teal'C were away Sam and Harry analyzed each piece of navigation and propulsion technology the _Beliskner_ had. However, their considerations were interrupted when they heard a muted hiss of pain coming from Thor.

"Are you OK?" asked a worried Sam, coming over to Thor's biobed.

"I dare not use the ship's automated medical systems; if the Replicators have tampered with it, it could kill me," explained Thor in a weak voice.

"Well, I brought a medical kit, and I have field medical training."

"Major…" prompted Harry, gesturing for her to come closer. "Asgard physiology is too different from our own, any medicines you have would likely only make the situation worse."

"But he's getting visibly weaker…" she argued in turn.

"Yes, but that pod he is in can put him into a stasis field and preserve his life should it come to that," said Harry, turning back to the control pedestal.

"Harry is correct, Samantha Carter," said Thor. "If I go into critical condition, the pod will give a visible warning, only then should you engage the stasis field…until that time, however, I can still be of some assistance."

Teal'C and Jack returned at that point, carrying the remaining cargo cylinder and the rest of the PBX explosives.

"We don't have much time folks," said Jack, "the Replicators are eating through the walls and I think it won't be long before they decide to have a snack on Earth."

"And I found our solution," said Harry, tapping a few symbols on the screen and highlighting an engine on the port aft quarter of the ship. "Now…the dampening fields will stop explosions inside the ship. But not outside."

"What about the shields then?" asked Sam.

"They would not protect against a weapon already within the perimeter of the force field," he went on to explain. "This engine is called the Deceleration Drive, its basically what's used when the ship wants to enter a planet's atmosphere. We place the BF8 on the engine and just as the Replicators land the ship we destroy the Deceleration Drive…"

"…causing the ship to spin out of control and burn up in Earth's atmosphere," finished Sam with a grin.

"Someone will then have to place the explosive outside of this vessel," said Teal'C stoically.

"Of course they are," said Jack, rubbing his eyes wearily.

Sam and Teal'C went off to ready the space suits for the upcoming EVA, while Harry highlighted a route on the holographic screen for Jack to follow towards the port airlock. Jack noticed however when Teal'C started to put on the space suit.

"Hey, shouldn't I be the one doing this?"

"There is a radiation concern, sir," said Sam, as she helped Teal'C to climb into the solid thick pants of the space suit.

"My symbiote protects me from prolonged exposure to any form of radiation," said Teal'C neutrally.

"Ah, I see," said Jack, suddenly looking none too enthusiastic about the EVA.

When Teal'C was fully suited up and the BF8 attached to a cord that would keep it attached to him in the zero gravity outside the ship, he and Jack left the control room again, their place slowed considerably due to the bulky space suit.

Harry and Sam monitored their progress toward the airlock by using thermal sensors overlaid with a graphic of the ship. Luckily it seemed that the Replicators had not yet overrun the airlock as yet. Harry watched as Teal'C's blip on the sensors carefully as he moved into the airlock. It was depressurized and finally the Jaffa was outside, carefully using the various protrusions on the ship's hull as makeshift handrails…it was something akin to mountain climbing, you loose your grip…you're dead.

Finally, after half an hour of careful moving, Teal'C was over the Deceleration Drive.

"OK, Teal'C," said Harry, keying his radio. "That's it. The drive is right in front of you. Stick the BF8 face down onto the hull and get out of there."

"Understood."

Teal'C took about a minute to securely fasten the device and arm it. And then, he began the long trip back. When Teal'C was almost to the airlock again, Jack's voice crackled over the radio link. "Yo, Teal'C, I think you better step on it. I can hear Replicators nearby."

"I'm almost there, O'Neill," gasped Teal'C back.

It was then that things began to go wrong. Harry saw the computer report that the open outer hatch of the airlock had shut. He knew that Jack would never do such a thing, not while Teal'C was still outside. Harry traced the last command pathway to the airlock door and swore.

"Is it the Replicators?" asked Sam.

"Yes," said Harry, his fingers tapping furiously on the pedestal, trying to override the lockout.

"Ambassador?" asked Jack, in a sing-song voice. Harry knew he too, had discovered the problem.

"I know, I'm working on it!" snapped Harry back. Teal'C in the meantime had paused outside the airlock and was thumbing the exterior buttons, trying to get in.

"The door will not open."

"I know, Teal'C, sit sight I'm working on it," said Harry into his radio. Then, Murphy's law decided to make it's very welcome presence felt.

"Teal'C's oxygen tank just blew!" said Jack urgently over the radio.

"O'Neill!" shouted Teal'C desperately.

"Quick, use the transporter," said Sam. Harry only nodded and he hastily moved the jewel in his left hand to Transporter control, while his right tapped in the coordinates.

"Ambassador!" prompted Jack.

"Shit and Damn and a thousand curses!" snapped Harry. "Colonel, the transport array covering that side of the ship has been knocked off line by the Replicators…the only way we can get him inside is if he pushed off the ship so that one of the other arrays can pick him up."

Jack cursed and relayed the message. Harry watched anxiously as the thermal dot that represented Teal'C pushed itself off the side of the ship and began to drift away.

"Isn't there some way to adjust the closest array?" asked Sam with worry.

"Not in the time Teal'C has left," said Harry. Just then, another beeping alarm went off, this time coming from Thor's biopod…the small Asgard's biosigns were reaching critical levels. "Sam! Quick! Press the large jewel on the right side of the bed, second from the top." She ran over and did so…a dark shield of plastic materialized over Thor, completely encasing the pod and sealed it.

"I'm going to find Murphy someday and shoot him!" groused Harry and turned his attention back to Teal'C.

"Ambassador!"

"He's coming into range…now!" Harry tapped the control, and Teal'C vanished from outside the ship and appeared in the corridor next to Jack. "Whew."

888888888888888888888888

Teal'C and Jack came back into the control room, where Sam was waiting to get the space suit off.

"Sorry for the trouble, guys," said Harry. "But that was the last airlock untouched by the Replicators, guess they went back to round up their handiwork." Jack glanced at the biopod capsule.

"What happened?"

"Thor was dying, we had to put him into stasis."

"So, now what?"

"We wait and blow the bomb at the right time," said Sam, pulling off the oxygen connector hoses on the space suit.

"Which is when?"

"When we start to enter the atmosphere," said Harry, turning to the control pedestal. "Too early, and the re-entry could be aborted by the Replicators…too late, and the BF8 will burn off the hull and be of no use."

"Can you fix the beam down thing, so we can get out of here just as we blow it?" asked Jack.

"I cannot fix this ship's outward transporter in the time available," said Harry shaking his head. "But I do have a way for us off this ship."

"How?" asked Sam curiously, as she unzipped the back of Teal'C space suit.

"If I tell you," said Harry, turning to them, looking dead serious. "Will you keep this a secret, even from your own superiors?" Sam frowned confusion.

"That would depend on what the secret was," said Jack.

"Well, after your undercover operation two months ago, which allowed us to shut down the illegal National Intelligence Directorate (NID) off world base, which was stealing technology, I came to the conclusion that these rogue NID elements on Earth would stop at nothing to achieve any of their selfishly appointed goals. One of the concerns I had was that they would kidnap me and coerce me into providing technologies that I deemed Earth was not mature enough to have."

"I don't think that would happen," said Sam thoughtfully. "You have Ambassadorial status and if your person was ever harmed or kidnapped, the Asgard would step in."

"They would," agreed Harry. "But that would take time…so, to get to the point, I installed an automated Asgard transporter module in your lab Major, and shifted it out of phase. In the skin and flesh between my left forefinger and thumb is a tiny hidden subspace transponder. I only need to squeeze it and the module will activate and transport me back into the good Major's lab."

"Wow, but how does that help us?" said Sam.

"As long as you are all holding onto me, you will be taken along for the ride," said Harry with a grin.

"I can keep this secret," stated Teal'C, who finally stepped out of his space suit. Sam nodded in agreement.

"I'll do it," said Jack. "But only if you give all of us transponders as well. You never know when the NID might decide to do the same to us."

"Very well," said Harry. "Then in our report we will state that I managed to fix an outbound transporter. OK?" Everyone nodded.

"Well, we better let Hammond know what to expect," said Jack and stepped into the hologram transmitter circle. Harry walked over to the control pedestal and shifted the jewel into the appropriate spot…only to get no response from the system. "Anytime now?"

"The Replicators have disabled it," sighed Harry with a sigh. His words were punctuated by the sound of the Replicators moving through the walls in the control room. A rumbling echoed through the ship as the engines powered up. "We're beginning our descent," said Harry darkly staring at the computer, he made a quick note of the ship's altitude and rate of descent…made a quick mental calculation and rushed to Thor's pod.

He jumped on top of it and found a seat above the transparent stasis bubble. Jack and Teal'C hurried over to the right side of the pod and grabbed onto Harry's elbow and shoulder respectively. Sam approached from the other side and grabbed onto the crook of his left elbow.

"Now this is a Kodak moment," said Jack wryly, as the ship began to enter the atmosphere and a loud rumble permeated the hull. But it seemed the Replicators were not content to just leave them alone. The control jewel of the door to the control room melted away and it allowed space for a single file of Replicators to enter.

Jack hefted his USAS and began to shoot shot after shot of shotgun shells at the Replicators. It would have been fine if that was it. But it seemed the Replicators had gained control of the door as well as it parted to allow a veritable flood of Replicators to stream in.

Harry and Teal'C brought their USAS's to bear and began loosing off shots as fast as they could squeeze the trigger. The noise of the shotguns and exploding Replicators was deafening and pretty soon Sam's M16 joined in the chorus of destruction, as more Replicators streamed in from other points of the room and the ceiling.

"Ambassador!" prompted Jack.

"Not yet!" screamed Harry back.

They group continued firing, Replicators kept exploding, but their numbers were too great.

"Ambassador!" shouted Jack.

"Noo..t YET!" said Harry, putting a new clip into his USAS and resuming their defense.

A veritable tide of Replicators stormed the room…Harry pulled out the remote control for the BF8 waited two seconds and pressed the button…the ship rocked from the sudden loss of the engine…Harry dropped the remote and shouted, "NOW!" The group grabbed a hold of him as he thumbed the transponder in his hand…

_A\N: Awww…I'm so sorry I had to just do that once to you guys…a cliffhanger! Hey..don't get me wrong…I hate them too but, doesn't it just get the heart pumping! _


	10. Chapter 10

_**Chapter Ten – Turning Point**_

_SGC – Earth…_

Columns of white light flashed in the laboratory of Major Carter. It dimmed to reveal a harried and shell-shocked looking SG1, Harry, plus a stasis pod that contained Thor. Their weapons were still trained outward and the barrels slightly smoking from the residue of sulfur burning off within them. And for some odd reason they just stood there…Harry thought it was partly due to disbelief that they had managed to hold back the tide of Replicators for so long. It was Jack who finally broke the silence.

"Hot damn!" he said, slapping his hand against the nearby lab table. "How's that for timing?"

"Very close, sir," added Sam.

"Sirs!" came an unfamiliar voice. An SF that had been passing through the hall had spotted them in the lab as he had walked past. The sight of them toting shotguns had caused the Security Force Sergeant to pull his ever-present sidearm.

"It's okay, sergeant, everything's under control," said Jack. "Carter, you wanna get on the phone to Hammond and tell him to call off the memorial service for us?"

"Yes, sir," nodded Sam and headed over to the wall phone. Ten minutes later, General Hammond entered the lab and a surprisingly up and about Daniel hurried in as well, wincing with every step. Sam had moved Thor's pod out of the way to an empty corner of her lab, while Jack was trying to crack a few jokes to Teal'C, who as usual, didn't get them, and Harry just leaned lazily against the corner of the lab table.

"SG1, report," ordered Hammond; belying his official tone of voice was the smile on his face as he was certainly happy to see his premiere team safe. Jack gave a brief verbal account of events from their own point of view. The General informed them that apparently the makeshift plan to destroy the ship had worked…the doomed _Beliskner_ had spiraled out of control and immediately began to be ripped apart by the sudden stress on the space frame and the sheer heat of re-entry took care of the rest. Despite this, debris had impacted into the ocean a few hundred miles off the Californian coastline…the Navy was tasked with cleanup duty and to look for anything that might have survived.

Just as Hammond finished informing them of events…they were all startled when Thor's pod changed into a column of white light and vanished.

"Guess the Asgard were in a hurry to get him back," commented Harry.

"And not even a thank you note," stated Jack in mock disappointment.

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The true fallout of the attempted Replicator infestation of Earth became fully evident only a week later. Harry and Sam had finalized the designs for the Naquadah reactor matrix and sent the plans and research off to Area 51 where the reactors would actually be built. They were now engrossed in studying a few Replicator blocks that had been salvaged by the Navy…there were only three dead blocks so there was no danger of the blocks forming a full fledged Replicator.

"I wonder what went through the idiots' mind who developed these things," mused Harry, staring at the angular replicator block he was holding with a pair of forceps.

"Perhaps they were trying to create a self sustaining manufacturing capability," said Sam, looking at her own replicator block through a magnifying lamp.

"Good guess," said Harry, "that would explain why the Replicators are so adaptable and versatile. I mean if you had these little buggers running around a starship and maintaining your systems and fixing damage, you would never have to worry about engineers getting in harms way. But whoever programmed the original baseline code for the AI of the Replicators obviously got something very wrong."

The wall phone in Sam's lab rung and she put down her replicator block to answer it.

"Major Carter…ok…yes…I understand, we'll be there in ten minutes." She put down the phone. "Major Davis is coming over from the Pentagon, apparently we're not out of the woods yet with regards to the Replicators."

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SG1, Harry and General Hammond were seated in a slightly darkened briefing room, watching as Major Davis thumbed the digital projector's remote control, showing classified blueprints and schematics for what looked to be a submarine. Major Davis was the SGC's liaison to the Pentagon. He was a compact looking man, with regulation short dark brown hair and pointed chin. He was considered an armchair warrior by most within the SGC, a title that he was trying his best to get rid of by training whenever the men and woman of SGC trained, hoping that he could get off-world certified status.

"The Navy intercepted a mayday from the commander of a Foxtrot class submarine," said Davis, handing out 'Classified' file folders to each person in the room, "codename…Blackbird."

"Foxtrot?" said Jack as he opened his folder. "That's Russian."

"Yes," confirmed Davis. "Apparently, the crew was being attacked by a large mechanical spider." A pin could be heard dropping in the room as everyone took in the news and its implications.

"Just one?" asked Jack shrewdly.

"We thought it was a joke at first, but then the transmission cut out," said Davis. "At approximately seventeen hundred the sub was spotted by aircraft off the _Nimitz_. It had already surfaced and all attempts at communication went unanswered. It was boarded…the crew was found dead."

"All of them?" asked Sam gravely.

"They got the bodies off before they discovered how they died," said Davis in reply. Harry stared at the one photograph in the file that interested him most. It was a rather daring shot by whoever had the camera; the scene showed a control panel somewhere in the Russian Foxtrot sub and a single Replicator was crawling up it.

"That's them," said Jack, apparently staring at the same photo.

"Sir, if this started with only one bug, then it has already replicated," concluded Sam.

"The man who took the pictures, fortunately, made it out of the sub, the _Nimitz_ then contacted the Pentagon, who in turn got a hold of us," reported Davis.

"Do the Russians know we have the sub?" asked Hammond with narrowed eyes.

"No," said Davis emphatically. "We're denying any knowledge, but…this is going to get sticky."

"You have to make sure that none of the Replicators get out of that sub," said Sam sternly.

"It's under tight supervision," reassured Davis. "The harbor has been evacuated and the entire area cordoned off. Our cover story is a dangerous chemical spill."

"Blow it up," stated Jack without preamble.

"The Pentagon has requested that we preserve a number of specimens for study," said Davis, despite Jack's opinion.

"The Asgard already tried that," said Jack patiently, "these buggers are on the verge of wiping out their entire race."

"That's why I'm here," said Davis with a sigh. "You here are closest thing to experts that we've got."

"As an 'expert'," said Jack strongly, "I say, 'Blow it up!'"

"Conventional weapons might not do it, sir," concluded Sam, "at least one of the Replicators survived the destruction of Thor's ship."

"Fine!" conceded Jack, "then tow it out to sea and nuke it!" Major Davis, seeing how adamant Jack was being turned to Hammond and yielded the floor.

"We're in a political mess at the moment, Colonel," sighed Hammond. "The Russians picked up the Asgard ship on radar as it fell into the ocean."

"So?" asked Jack, failing to see what the problem was.

"So, they're not buying our version of the story," explained Davis further. "They already think we're responsible for what happened to their sub…a nuclear explosion in international waters…" He didn't need to finish the sentence. Harry only kept the minutiae of the discussion in the back of his mind; he was staring at the picture of the Replicator…something was there…something obvious…

"I don't think you realize just how dangerous these things are," said Sam severely.

"Is there any other way to neutralize these things…alien technologies you've come across?" asked Davis.

"You don't need alien technologies to do deal with these replicators," said Harry eventually.

"Ambassador?" asked Hammond, inviting elaboration. Harry held up the photo of the Replicator.

"The Replicators that SG1 and I fought on Thor's ship were a neon purple in color…why? Because they consumed they exotic and strong alloys that make up an Asgard warship and used the alloys to replicate…this replicator," he tapped the photo with his finger, "is silver, because it was constructed using the steel and iron from the Foxtrot sub…as a result these Replicators are less resilient and vulnerable to the corrosive effects of saltwater all around them."

"Of course! How could I have missed that?" asked Sam rhetorically, grabbing her own photo.

"All you need do is to send in a well equipped team with USASs, destroy the original Replicator that survived the destruction of Thor's ship and then torpedo the sub…the seawater will take care of the rest. Problem solved, quick, clean, quietly and nuke free," said Harry with a grin.

"I'll inform the Pentagon," said Davis earnestly, looking impressed and walked out of the room.

The incoming subspace path alarm went off and they could hear the inner ring of the gate beginning to spin. "Unscheduled off world activation!" announced Tech Sergeant Walter Harriman's characteristic voice over the PA system.

"We have no teams off world," stated General Hammond and rose out of his chair and hurried down the spiral staircase directly into the control room, Harry and the rest of SG1 following in his wake.

The subspace path sprang to life with the characteristic horizontal swirl of unstable waterlike energy and settled into an event horizon as they arrived. Harry immediately sensed a dampening field being projected through the Stargate and he knew that it was that Asgard dialing in.

"Why isn't the iris closing?" asked Hammond.

"I'm trying sir," announced a frustrated Walter, "it's not responding. And we're showing an increasing loss of power in the base."

"What?" asked Sam incredulously.

"Don't be alarmed," stated Harry, "it's the Asgard."

"Are you sure?" asked the General.

"Positive, General…only the Asgard possess the means to achieve this…"

The event horizon remained still for a relatively long amount of time, obviously because of the fact that the subspace path was coming all the way from the Ida galaxy, about four million light years distant from the Milky Way. Eventually the diminutive figure of an Asgard stepped awkwardly through the event horizon.

"That's Thor," said Jack, and hurried out of the control room, Harry and rest behind him. "Stand down!" he ordered the defense teams and they lowered their weapons. "Thor, buddy!"

"Greetings O'Neill," droned Thor, coming to a stop at the base of the ramp, ",Harry."

"Good to see you up and around," said Jack genially, giving Thor a light pat on the shoulder.

"I owe you and the others who participated a great debt of gratitude for saving my life," said Thor, his big head inclined in respect.

"Well, there's timing," said Jack, smirking at Sam.

"Not all of the Replicators perished when we destroyed the _Beliskner_, Thor," stated Harry. "But we have devised a plan to deal with them that should work."

"That is my main reason for coming," said Thor. "I have come via Stargate because there are no ships to spare. My homeworld is being threatened by the Replicators as well, thus far, all attempts to stop them…have failed. I have come here to seek your help." Thor turned his gaze to Harry pointedly. The Stargate disengaged, plunging the room into momentary darkness, however, the dampening field lifted and power came back online.

"How can we help you?" asked Jack, rather astonished.

"Your projectile weaponry was effective in fatally damaging the Replicators," said Thor, but Harry knew the subtle message Thor was trying to send by staring at him. Thor wanted Harry's help as an Alteran.

"Some," conceded Jack.

"Your strategy and technology for destroying the _Beliskner_ was successful," stated Thor.

"That was all the Ambassador and Carter," protested Jack.

"With all due respect to your situation, Thor," said General Hammond, "we need SG1 here to deal with our Replicator problem."

"I could go, General," said Harry.

"Same here," said Sam. "The plan Harry devised doesn't require his or my presence really, I think we could be of more use to the Asgard."

"Permission granted," nodded the General after a moment's consideration.

"We must leave immediately," droned Thor and he lifted a jewel device…which glowed…and instantly an outgoing subspace path formed in the mouth of the Stargate.

Harry and Sam walked past Jack, who said, "Have fun!"

The scientific duo slowed their pace for Thor and when the tiny Asgard had caught up, they all walked unflinchingly through the event horizon and dematerialized…Harry was acutely aware of the journey as he was shot through the subspace path, due the fact that it was an extra-galactic 'wormhole', which required an astronomical amount of power to generate and sustain. The journey was also quite long as far as using a Stargate was concerned…a whole twelve seconds.

They emerged from the Stargate into a large arrival room. The architecture was of typical Asgardian design, flowing contours of silver chrome, purples and dark obsidian floors. A small staircase that seemed designed for the tiny legs of an Asgard almost caused Sam to trip and fall flat on her face. Harry caught her by the arm and steadied her on her feet.

She looked up to see a whole host of curious Asgard staring at them. They were muttering to each other in their highly pitched language.

"Uh, Thor, why are they staring at us?" whispered Sam.

"You are the first human many of them have seen in near millennia," said Thor, turning his head once again at to stare at Harry pointedly, this made him realize that the Asgard were also staring for another reason, they were looking at him. It was also the first time in millennia that they had beheld an Alteran…and Harry's race was a few million years older than the Asgard…it was also the Alteran's who had initially seeded the roots of civilization amongst the first Asgard.

Harry bowed his head in greeting and let his true inner self flare for a few moments. Sam would see nothing…but the Asgard in the room would perceive a bright white aura spreading out from him like a giant eagle unfolding its wings. The assembled Asgard's eyes widened and then they too bowed their heads slightly…as they recognized Harry for who he was.

"Come," said Thor and led the way through the throng of Asgard. Harry reeled his aura in and followed, with Sam at his side.

The walked down the hall leading off from the arrival room and immediately turned into another room that Harry recognized as a dedicated transporter room. Thor stepped over to the curved control pedestal and manipulated the jewels on it.

"I am transporting us to the ship we will use for our efforts," said Thor, and without warning they were all engulfed in the white light of a transporter beam and vanished.

They reappeared in the observation lounge on board another _Beliskner_-class Asgard warship. The ship was docked with a gigantic anti-gravity drydock that hovered over a very beautiful and high tech city along a coastline, small hovercars occasionally flew past the observation window all going about their business but the view was dominated by a huge warship that was moored to the same drydock, but it was not of a class that Harry was familiar with.

It had the same hammer and wedge design of all Asgard ships but was far larger than any other class and sleeker, with rounded edges and a much more predatory look than he had come to expect from Asgard ship design. The hull was also clearly made out of some new alloy that he had not yet seen before, that gleamed a beautiful chrome silver in the sun.

"Wow," said Sam in awe, and stared at the ship.

"A beautiful ship, Thor," said Harry with a grin. "Your shipbuilders have outdone themselves with this one."

"Yes," droned Thor. "The _O'Neill_ was supposed to be our last great hope."

"The _O'Neill_?" asked Sam, looking bemused. Harry grinned at the sentiment. The Asgard was a race that had its unique quirks. One of them is, that once you earned their respect, they started to name things after you. Harry had an Asgard city named after him somewhere on this planet, it wasn't called 'Harry City' of course…its name was 'Tyr City'.

"Yes," answered Thor. "It is the most advanced Asgard technological creation yet. It is the first Asgard vessel designed solely to fight in a war against the Replicators."

"So why aren't we taking that?" asked Sam.

"It isn't ready," said Thor gravely.

"What is the situation you are facing with regards to the Replicators, Thor?" asked Harry, getting to the point, tearing his eyes away from the _O'Neill_.

"Five Asgard ships are currently engaging three ships controlled by the Replicators, which are on their way here," said Thor. "We are going to join the battle and with both your help…stop them."

"Ok," said Sam faintly.

"For the sake of Asgard, we must not fail," said Thor stoically.

"No pressure," said a wide-eyed Sam. The Asgard ship they were on abruptly disengaged from the drydock, pointed its bow to the heavens, causing the view of the _O'Neill_ to abruptly vanish and be replaced by blue with specked clouds and the ship sped upward and out of the atmosphere within moments.

"Relax Major," advised Harry with a grin. "As long as you remember to see the forest for it's trees, then no solution to a problem is beyond your grasp."

"Yeah, well," said Sam, not sure how to reply to that statement, she turned to Thor. "Is there any refreshing facilities for humans on this ship?" Thor inclined his head in the standard Asgard gesture of appearing to think something over. A door in the observation lounge opened by itself to reveal beyond a water fountain, mirror and toilet.

"This room was prepared for your arrival ahead of time," stated Thor as the unasked question was written on Sam's facial expression. She walked into the refreshing station and the door closed behind her.

"You have reached a new stage of your development," said Thor without preamble, turning toward Harry.

"I have," nodded Harry. "My legacy as an Alteran is now accessible to me, to a marginal extent."

"Then can I and the Asgard as a people request that you help us in any way that you can," said Thor, bowing his head.

"You know I will, my friend," said Harry kindly. "I agreed long ago to honor the old Alliance of Four. You did so when you rescued me from Loki and educated me, how can I now refuse lending my full knowledge and power to the Asgard's aid. I would imagine that my Ascended ancestors in the higher planes of existence would be very put off with me if I allowed the Asgard as a race to die out, when it was within my power to save you."

"Thank you," said Thor emphatically. Harry kneeled in front of Thor and placed a hand on the tiny Asgard's shoulder…Thor did a very un-Asgardian thing and gasped, as he was flooded with Harry's feelings of friendship and loyalty and above all a sense of that they were equals.

"As one my kind said, 'Words cannot convey the spirit.'"

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Three hours later and Sam was looking like she had just wrung her own mind through a tumble dryer. And Harry could clearly sympathize, Thor was many things, but he was not a teacher like Heimdoll. Ever since she had emerged from the bathroom, she had requested that Thor go through everything the Asgard had on the Replicators. What followed was a science lecture on the Replicator technology that left her baffled.

Harry, on the other hand, while he understood what was being said, was finding Thor's droning voice rather vexing, as he was speaking in English(for Sam's benefit), which was entirely too cumbersome to describe some of the science involved and he was constantly translating the English into Alteran Standard in his head to understand what Thor was saying. Sam had leaned her hands on her head, as if to support it, as if it was absorbing all the huge amounts of information Thor was presenting them.

"…each replicator block, is capable of exerting a reactive, modulating, mono-polar energy field on other blocks," said Thor, as ahead of them a holographic screen showed a graphic of a grouping of replicator blocks assembling themselves into a standard 'bug' form. "Allowing the Replicators to assemble themselves into many forms." A single block on the Replicator was highlighted and became transparent, the view zoomed in to show layer after layer of complex energy matrices. "To our knowledge, the interior of a Replicator block contains the following; two million isolated keyron pathways…"

"Whoah, whoah," said Sam, and paused the holodisplay by moving the jewel on the pedestal. She turned to Thor who was seated in a standard Asgard control throne. "What is a keyron?"

"In simplest terms, it is an energy particle," said Thor.

"I've never even heard of it," said Sam.

"I am aware of that," nodded Thor. Harry on the other hand was familiar with a keyron particle, though he hardly ever thought it could be used in such a manner to construct a self replicating technology.

"So how am I supposed to figure out a way to stop a keyron based technology, if I don't even know what a keyron is?" implored Sam.

"The Asgard would never invent a weapon, that propels small weights of iron and carbon alloys, by igniting a combination of potassium nitrate, charcoal and sulfur," said Thor patiently.

"Ok, I get your point," said Sam ruefully.

"We cannot think like you," said Thor. Harry also took that to mean that the Asgard could also not think like an Alteran. Harry stared at the keyron matrices as Sam continued her conversation with Thor. He closed his eyes and hesitantly opened the door the Infinite Universe in his mind…he looked around at the flashing dimensions of Alteran text and knowledge and thought of one thing…_keyron_…in Alteran…the infinite whiteness shifted with blinding speed and rotated in every dimension conceivable by math…a ethereal mist flowed slowly past and Harry snatched it and allowed it to be absorbed into his conscious mind…with a wrench of effort he pulled out of the void and came back to the ship…

He opened his eyes to find a worried Sam staring at him.

"Are you Ok?"

"Fine," said Harry, and saw that there was now a simulation of an actual replicator next to the control pedestal he was standing at. "You come up with anything yet?"

"No," said Sam bluntly. "It's one thing to confront the replicators with shotguns, but this is another level of playing field. We're talking about ship to ship combat."

"Indeed," said Harry. They were interrupted however, when the holographic screen flared to life and an unfamiliar Asgard appeared on the screen accompanied by a sensor profile image of the space ahead. The Asgard spoke to Thor for a few moments.

"What is it?" asked Sam.

"We have lost contact with the Asgard ships confronting the Replicators," said Thor.

"Could it be a communication problem?" she said, as the Asgard on the screen continued to speak.

"No," said Harry darkly. "The ships are no longer being detected." The holoscreen showing the Asgard faded, and resolved to show a full resolution sensor profile of three Asgard vessels, designated in an angry red color, heading at maximum sublight thrust to the Asgard homeworld.

"So what are those?" she asked, pointing at the screen.

"Replicators," answered Thor simply.

"We're too late then," said Sam, as the ship they were on moved in behind the advancing Replicator ships on the sensor profile.

"We are too late too have made a difference in the battle," said Harry with a raised eyebrow. "But not too late to make a difference in the war."

"But I don't see how we have the time?" she argued.

"You will note that the Replicators are not traveling at hyperspeed," said Harry. "It requires full power from the neutrino-ion generators to generate the subspace field, at the moment, the replicators are using that power to make more of themselves."

"And Replicators do not view time in the same way we do," said Thor. "They can afford to wait, as they know we have no viable means of stopping them."

"How do they gain control of your own ships in the first place?" asked Sam.

"The Replicators are capable of modifying our own weapons technology beyond our understanding," said Thor neutrally. "They also create projectiles made out of Replicator blocks and fling them at our ships, which simply phases through the shields and allows them to infest ships."

"So that means they can easily blow us to smithereens or infest this ship," said Sam. "So why don't they?"

"We have shown no signs of aggression," said Harry simply.

"And this ships technology is less advanced than the ones the Replicators are currently occupying," said Thor in turn.

"Not really helping, am I?" said Sam ruefully.

"I have an idea," said Harry, eventually.

"What is it?" asked Sam eagerly, hoping to build off whatever Harry had come up with.

"If it's successful, we can perhaps stop one of the ships," he said. "But then the Replicators will perceive us as a threat and we will come under instant attack from the remaining two ships and we will not survive that."

"Ok, but what's your plan?"

"What allows the Replicators to communicate with one another is the reactive, mono-polar energy field that binds the blocks together, it's the foundation upon which they can perform tasks and react coherently. To effectively combat the Replicators on a ship-to-ship scale we will need to destroy that foundation."

"So what can disrupt that energy field then?" asked Sam, and then it hit her. She turned to Thor and asked, "How did you disrupt power to the SGC when you walked through the Stargate?"

"I projected an energy dampening field through the Stargate," said Thor. "The subspace field of the Stargate itself, acts as a lens and allows the effect to permeate everywhere in the immediate area around the Stargate. But to disrupt simple electrical components is relatively easy; to disrupt a keyron generated field is something infinitely more difficult. The Asgard has explored energy disruption technology as a method of fighting the Replicators before…unsuccessfully."

Harry turned back to the control pedestal and shifted the jewels and he began tapping on the Asgard characters as fast as he could.

"What are you doing?" asked Sam.

"I am modifying the Asgard matter disruptor weapon that you saw Thor use on Simeria, when he destroyed Heru'ur's forces," said Harry. "You can figure out a way for us to stop all three ships, while I concentrate on this."

Sam was about to ask another question but Thor called her over. "Let Harry work, I am confident he will succeed, but he won't succeed if we constantly disrupt him with questions."

"Ok, so let's assume he can get the energy disruption weapon working, how can we take out all three ships at once with it?" asked Sam rhetorically and frowned, eventually she sighed and rubbed her neck wearily.

"You are tired?" said Thor.

"Yeah," said Sam.

"It's another advantage the Replicators have over us, they do not require rest," explained Thor.

"But they do need to eat," said Sam thoughtfully.

"Yes, in order to replicate."

"And they are what they eat," said Sam, then asked, "what's the strongest material you know of?"

"We have just developed a new alloy of naquadah, trinium, and carbon. It was used to create the hull of the _O'Neill_."

"Can that ship be piloted using remote control?"

"Yes, why?"

"So we can get the Replicators to chase after it," she explained. "The _O'Neill_ is the most advanced ship you have, to them it will look like an all you can eat buffet. It would definitely buy time for another shot with Harry's energy disruptor, and if perhaps, that ship could also be modified with the disruptor technology, we would take out the last ship."

"A compelling strategy, and carries great risk," said Thor. "If the Replicators manage to infest the _O'Neill_, then they will consume its technology and we will have created an even more advanced version of the Replicators. One that is perhaps…unstoppable."

"Done," announced Harry, rubbing his aching right hand…tapping controls that fast was always something he never relished doing. He shifted the appropriate jewel and it displayed the schematics of the altered matter disruptor to Thor and Sam. "I have the weapon charging now…it should be enough for five consecutive shots that will encompass the entirety of an Asgard vessel, after which a recharge period of a minute is required. Have you come up with a strategy?"

"Fascinating," said Thor, looking at the schematic display.

"Anyone?" asked Harry expectantly. Sam briefly explained her plan again. "Yes, that should work. Brilliant, Major." Sam shrugged modestly.

"Harry, please transmit the modifications to the drydock, I will implement them there," said Thor, and he was abruptly lit with the brilliant white light of a transporter beam and vanished. (Since the Asgard homeworld was back in range by now.)

Harry pressed the appropriate symbols and the modifications were transmitted.

An anxious twenty minutes passed as the Asgard homeworld steadily grew bigger.

"It's taking too long," muttered Sam.

"No, look," said Harry, pointing at the sensor profile display. The sleek lines of the _O'Neill_ streaked out of the atmosphere and accelerated at point six of lightspeed past the Replicator infested vessels. "Now that is an impressive sublight speed."

There was a flash of a transporter and Thor was again seated on his control chair.

"The _O'Neill_ is away," he reported.

Harry anxiously watched the sensors for what the Replicators were doing…they had stopped within orbit of the Asgard homeworld…and…and were turning around!

"That's it, they're chasing after it!" said Sam. And indeed the Replicators accelerated their ships to their own top speed of point five lightspeed in a clear attempt at pursuit. Harry stepped up to the control console and took control of their own ship and set off in pursuit behind them.

"Ok, Thor, start slowing down the _O'Neill_, make it look as if the engines are overheating," said Harry. The small Asgard thumbed a jewel device in his hand and sent his instructions by thought to the computer.

A minute into the pursuit and the _O'Neill_ did indeed start to slow down, till it leveled off at point four five of lightspeed.

"The Replicators will intercept the _O'Neill_ in two standard minutes," reported Thor. And again…Harry experienced that long void of time before battle was joined. His hands hovering over the controls for the energy disruptor.

"One standard minute," reported Thor.

"The Replicators will enter the _O'Neill_'s weapon's range in forty five seconds," said Harry for Sam's benefit, as there was no way she could understand the scrolling Asgard text on the display. The seconds counted slowly down until…

"Five…four…three…two…one…firing!"

From Thor's ship a pulse the width of the ship itself was shot towards the nearest Replicator ship. The pulse distorted the light of the stars and was tinted slightly towards the purple end of the light frequency spectrum. The pulse washed upon the Replicator ship like an ocean wave breaking upon the beach. Instantly, the Replicator ship in question began to list on an uncontrolled vector as all the Replicators on board had ceased to function.

The remaining two Replicator ships turned towards Thor's ship in apparent anger (though they knew a Replicator was not capable of feeling anything) and was about to fire when the _O'Neill_ did an abrupt about face (something it could not have done with a crew on board due to the sheer G-forces involved would overwhelm any inertial dampening system) and fired a similar energy disruption pulse that disabled the second Replicator ship.

The element of surprise was complete.

"Taking evasive action," said Harry in a strained voice and he pitched their ship in a sharp turn to starboard. The sole remaining Replicator ship sent a beam of solid blue energy that partially hit the shields. The ship rocked under the impact nevertheless. "Shields down to thirty percent," said Harry in near disbelief…any weapon that could do that to an Asgard shield deserved respect, no matter who made it.

"The _O'Neill_ is firing again," said Sam.

The ship in question sent another wave of disruption energy at the Replicator ship. But the Replicators had anticipated it and taken their own evasive action. The ship was only partially hit with the disruption wave. Harry swung Thor's own ship around and fired…getting a solid hit.

"Yes!" cried Sam in victory. "We did it!" In her exuberance she hugged Thor, bumping the Asgard's head with her own. "Oooh, sorry, I didn't hurt you did I?"

"I am fine," said Thor patiently.

"We did it," said Sam again.

"That we did, Major," said Harry with an amused grin.

"The energy disruptor schematics are being sent to every Asgard ship in the Ida galaxy. What we did here today will perhaps mark a turn of tide against the Replicators," said Thor. "On behalf of the Asgard people I thank you. You have both done as you have promised, and therefore we will do as we have promised."

Thor's ship and the _O'Neill_ came alongside each other in formation and with a brief pause flashed into the purple swirling distortion of a hyperspace window.

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An hour later the two ships reverted to normal space directly over Earth.

"Ok, I'm scanning the area off California for the Foxtrot submarine," said Harry and moved the jewels on the control pedestal and tapped in the coordinates. The sensor display in front showed Earth, then zoomed in to the East coast of the United States. It zoomed further until it showed an overview of the harbor where the Foxtrot class sub was being held. Harry could see a surface vessel, probably a Missile Frigate, and another submarine.

"I take it the other submarine is American?" asked Harry, changing the readout of the sensors to display readings in English.

"Yes," said Sam. "The dimensions match that of a Los-Angeles Class Attack submarine. Probably the _Dallas_."

"I'm detecting numerous Replicator signatures inside the Foxtrot," said Harry. "I'm also detecting Teal'C and the Colonel's subspace transponders. Minute explosive energy discharges as well, they're probably fighting the Replicators."

"The _Dallas_ is firing torpedoes!" exclaimed Sam.

"It seems that the Replicators have trapped O'Neill and Teal'C in a section of the underwater vessel," reported Thor, staring at his own sensor readout.

"Beam them out, hurry!" she instructed as the torpedoes exploded against the hull of the Russian submarine.

"Transport in progress," said Harry.

Two columns of light appeared on the floor and in front of them appeared Teal'C and Jack lying on the floor both curled into protective positions…no doubt the Replicators had been on the verge of overwhelming them. Jack uncurled and stared around him, catching sight of Thor, Harry and Sam looking at him in his undignified position in amusement.

"Now that's timing!" announced Jack, pointing at Thor.

"We came as soon as we could, sir," said Sam happily. Jack sat up and kneeled next to a recovering Teal'C, placing a brotherly hand on his back. "You all right?" Teal'C ever stoically nodded.

"I am all right, O'Neill," said the Jaffa.

"I take things weren't going so well?" asked Harry shrewdly.

"Your plan worked beautifully," said Jack. "Except we didn't count on the Replicators wanting to trap and kill us after mother bug was destroyed. But then you showed up and…here was are!"

"So the bugs are all taken care of down there?" asked Sam.

"Pretty much, you?"

"We kicked their asses," said Sam with a grin.

Jack nodded thoughtfully, but then frowned, "They had asses?"

Harry and Sam chuckled in response. "Come Colonel," said Harry, giving Jack a hand up and guided him over to the observation window where the _O'Neill_ dominated the view.

"Sweet looking ship," said Jack, impressed.

"You are looking at the latest class of Asgard battlecruiser, Colonel," said Harry and grinned while gesturing at the ship, "Say hello to the _O'Neill_."

"Oh yeah," said Jack, looking eager and beginning to look smug.

"I have a city named after me," said Harry nonchalantly. It was hilarious seeing the look of smugness fade from Jack's face and his shoulders visibly slump in disbelief.

"Oh."

"The Asgard are most grateful for all your assistance, one day we shall repay you for your assistance by helping you in your fight against the Goa'uld," said Thor.

"One day?" said Jack with a sigh, sounding disappointed.

"While we have saved the Asgard homeworld, it is but one planet," explained Thor. "The conflict against the Replicators stretches across my galaxy. Though it is a clear turning point, now that we have a viable means of fighting the Replicators, thanks to Harry. Once the Asgard are successful in scouring our galaxy of the scourge, we will be able to commit more ships to this galaxy, and perhaps even aid you in your own ship construction."

"Cool," said Jack.

"Until we meet again," said Thor in goodbye. Harry and Teal'C bowed in response and Sam nodded.

"Yeah," said Jack. "Come around any time, in fact, I'll take you fishing…I'd love to do that…there's this lake in Northern Minnesota where the bass grow that big…well…" Jack, Teal'C, Sam and Harry were consumed with the bright light of a transportation beam and Harry could have sworn he had seen a gleam in Thor's eye and his mouth was quirked in a near smirk directed at Jack, before the ship vanished around them and they were safely deposited within the SGC.

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_A/N: Whew, I'm just rolling out the chapters lately. You can clearly see where I'm beginning to take the story. I didn't like the way the Goa'uld were defeated in pure canon Stargate Universe. So here is where the AU aspect takes off big time._


	11. Chapter 11

_**Chapter Eleven – Much ado about Tok'ra**_

_Seaworld, Heimdoll's former lab…_

"What's the problem now?" said Harry in exasperation.

"We are having trouble interfacing the Asgard beam weapon with the _Artemis_," stated Vasir droningly. Harry stared down at the tiny Asgard standing next to him with a raised eyebrow.

"I need you to be more specific."

"The _Artemis_ has too much power," said Vasir shortly. Harry groaned and rubbed the bridge of his nose. Vasir was an Asgard shipbuilder and engineer who had been assigned to Seaworld to oversee Harry's ship building projects. It was an irritating habit of the small Asgard engineer to never explain himself fully…he always assumed that Harry…as an Alteran…would know everything there is to know. It seemed since the Asgard had lost all contact with the Alterans millennia ago, that there had been major exaggerations over the generations about the abilities of the Alterans.

Contrary to what most Asgard had come to believe, the Alterans didn't walk around as living Repositories of all their knowledge. Despite the advanced brain physiology of Alteran's it was still impossible to hold all that knowledge without going insane…only an Ascended could handle it.

"So the beam weapon isn't capable of projecting that much power through its capacitors," said Harry with a sigh, he had been afraid of this. Vasir nodded. "All right, remove the weapon from the _Artemis_ and I'll see what weapon system I can come up with to replace it."

"Very well," said Vasir. The tiny Asgard flashed with white light as he was transported away. Harry concentrated and with a thought teleported himself to the Stargate on the main island. It was a rather beautiful day; totally clear skies and the sun shone down brilliantly on the beaches. Harry turned his attention to the Stargate a few meters away and he brought the coordinates of Earth to the forefront of his mind. He made a circular gesture with his hand towards the gate and a subspace path sprang to life instantly…settling into the calm event horizon.

He pulled out his own GDO (Colloquially called the Garage Door Opener). It had been issued to him since General Hammond was tired of getting the nasty surprise when the iris failed to respond whenever Harry walked through. He typed in his iris code into the GDO and waited for it to indicate that the iris was open. The GDO flashed a green light and Harry walked calmly through the event horizon.

When he rematerialized within the SGC he walked instantly down the ramp and was surprised to only be greeted by Sergeant Walter Harriman. General Hammond and SG1 were nowhere to be seen.

"Welcome back to Earth, Ambassador," said Walter.

"Walter," nodded Harry with a frown. "What's going on? Isn't it protocol that I should at least be met by the most senior officer on watch duty?"

"That is the protocol, Ambassador," said Walter nervously, "but we are all a tad busy at the moment…the Tok'ra are here."

"Oh, who?"

"Her name is Freya and apparently the symbiote's name is Anise," reported Walter. Harry closed his eyes and rubbed the bridge of his nose as he felt his headache double in intensity instantly at Walter's words.

"Thanks, Walter, you told me all I need to know," said Harry and walked out of the embarkation room and headed down the adjoining corridor and into the lift. Harry idly wondered what new research scheme Anise was busy with these days. The door to the lift opened and was immediately called away after depositing Harry on level twenty.

He walked into the lab he shared with Sam only to find it in complete darkness, yet all the computers and equipment were lit up and powered. He could see Sam was busy intensely concentrating on the laptop on her desk and he could hear the keys of it being tapped at an incredible speed.

Harry reached over and flicked the light switch on.

"Hey!" cried Sam, covering her eyes as if blinded by the normal lighting of the room. A strange neon purple armband that Sam was wearing around her left forearm instantly drew Harry's attention. Its alien design was very evident and it was covered in a runic language, it also seemed to have its own power source as a diamond shaped light was flashing prominently on it. "Oh, hi Harry," she greeted and turned back to her laptop with her eyes squinting and she instantly resumed typing…she was typing so fast that her hands seemed to blur and leave after-images behind them.

"Hello Major," said Harry expectantly, moving to stand next to her. He glanced at the screen and saw what was apparently the nine hundredth page of a book on wormhole physics that was appearing on the screen as fast as the poor laptop could process through it's buffer memory. "Tell me, when did you start writing this book?"

"Oh, about two hours ago," said Sam with a smile. Harry did not look impressed…his right hand coiled and grasped Sam's left wrist with a speed that matched her own. "Hey! What are you doing?" Harry pulled the arm closer to examine the alien device more closely, taking in the minor details. Sam squirmed in an effort to get free, but for some strange reason found she could not make Harry's grip budge despite her enhanced strength.

Harry let go of her arm and asked flatly, "Where's Anise?"

"Probably in the gym with the Colonel," said Sam, looking aggravated. "Now do you mind if I finish this book?"

"Knock yourself out, Sam," said Harry and left the lab to head towards the gym on level fifteen. The fully furnished gym of the SGC was installed with the idea that many base personnel spent most of their time actually living in the base itself. As such a gym was required to keep fit.

When Harry entered there was no one else inside except for Jack and the Tok'ra Anise. The latter of which was wearing a very flattering mini-skirt and blouse combination made from brown leather that did everything to give you a good idea of the beautiful body beneath. She was holding a Tok'ra computing device in her hands and was directing Jack to make adjustments to the stepping machine he had positioned himself on. A similar neon purple alien armband was around Jack's right arm.

"I believe that should be an appropriate setting," stated Anise. "You may begin." Jack started to step on the pedals of the machine…fast…faster…even faster…until his legs were leaving after-images of themselves behind. Anise had a look about her that spoke of scientific curiosity and fascination as she stared down into her computing device at the readings…which was no doubt coming from a sensor she had placed somewhere on Jack. "That is enough," she said and Jack slowed down and eventually jumped off the machine still as fit as a fiddle, and he didn't even break a sweat. "Very impressive," praised Anise.

"Yeah, but you know," stated Jack with a frown, "I think that thing was actually slowing me down." Anise said nothing in response, but handed Jack a metallic sensor ball.

"Let us see what your strength quotient is now." Jack began to squeeze the sensor ball until it crumpled in his hands. Harry hated to admit it, but even he was fascinated and impressed by this. "You have the strength of about twenty men combined," stated Anise, near breathless in astonishment.

It was then that Jack finally spotted Harry.

"Ah, Ambassador," said Jack jovially, "you just have to try one of these armbands. They rock!"

"No, thank you, Colonel," said Harry politely in return, staring at Anise with narrowed eyes. "I'll pass."

Anise, for her part, did not look remotely abashed at Harry's presence, but he did detect a gleam in her eye and he knew that she would like nothing better than to get one of these armbands on him.

"Anise," Harry bowed his head in greeting.

"Tyr," she bowed in return. "It is agreeable to see you again."

"Indeed," said Harry stoically, their gazes competing for domination. Jack looked mightily uncomfortable all of a sudden.

"I'm going to see what Daniel is up to," said Jack and hurried out of the gym.

"I take it Dr Jackson also has one of these devices strapped to his arm," said Harry with a slight edge of accusation in his tone.

"They agreed to the experiment Tyr," retorted Anise.

"Perhaps they did," relented Harry, "but did you give them all of the facts? In my time with the Tok'ra you told me that you have been searching for the Atonieks armband technology for almost all of your life. Now it seems you have succeeded finally. Would you let the health and well-being of three Tau'ri stand in you way of obtaining the power of these devices for the Tok'ra?"

Anise dipped her head and raised it, her eyes flashing her symbiote came to the fore, "We make no excuses for fighting for our own survival."

"What is the long term price of wearing the armbands?" demanded Harry in anger.

"I don't know," said Anise, "that's precisely why I'm running this experiment. If it all works out, then the Tau'ri stand to gain three very powerful operatives and I will have gotten all the data I need to replicate the effects for the host of a Tok'ra."

"_If_, Anise, _if_," said Harry. "You know as well as I do, that everything has a price. Tau'ri physiology hasn't evolved yet to the point where it can sustain even half of the potential the armbands are giving them."

"But your physiology would…" Harry's hand snapped forward and gestured to Anise, hitting her with a neural block matrix, effectively silencing her vocal cords. He had also at the same time willed the security camera to shut down so it wouldn't record what had happened. Anise tried to speak but found her voice would not respond, she looked for a moment like a gaping fish.

"Do not speak of it in this place!" he said in anger. "Such an armband would have no effect on me. Do not worry, I will not interfere in your little experiment, or whatever scheme you have going on here. But I will be there to pick up the pieces when it all comes crashing down." Harry dropped his hand and the neural block lifted.

Anise gathered her computing device and the remains of the strength tester and left the gym without saying a word.

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For the next few hours Harry tried to keep himself busy by staying in the laboratory and working on the research for the X-project. The scientists at Area 51 had finally finished building a prototype two-meter long plasma cannon (a design based off the working principles of the PR7), which would be affixed, to the X302. Harry was watching a video taken of the first successful test firing of the weapon (after over fifteen various failures). The lead scientist reported they were now working on an even larger version, which was slated for the X303.

Harry was now looking at schematics for the redesign of the current generation of anti-fighter and anti-ship missiles in use on terrestrial fighter aircraft to allow their use in space and against the Goa'uld. While the Goa'uld and any advanced civilization out there largely considered missiles a primitive weapon, they would be highly effective against Death Gliders and would destroy an Al'kesh bomber with three consecutive hits.

The crux of the matter would be anti-ship missiles. The shields around a Ha'tak mothership allowed it to withstand even a direct naquadah enhanced nuclear explosion (1); hence conventional wisdom would state that the idea of using missiles against a Ha'tak is ludicrous. The scientists at Area 51 theorized that if explosive energy would not breach the shields then another type of energy had to be released by the missile. Harry was staring at a list of all the ideas they had come up with…some of which had merit.

One of the most noteworthy ideas was to use a 'tokamak' (or magnetic containment bottle) to store pure super energized plasma that would be generated from a fusion reactor (ie. the ones currently being built for the X303). This would be encased within the anti-ship missile. Another idea (which would need a lot of help from Harry to implement) was to use the giant particle accelerator in Switzerland (called the CERN) to generate anti-deuterium in vast quantities and store it using the containment fields recently developed in the work on the plasma cannon and fusion reactor.

Harry thought it was a bit of a pipe dream for Earth to be able to successfully harness the power of anti-matter. The CERN particle accelerator had generated anti-matter successfully in the past, but only in tiny quantities as the anti-particle only lasted for nine petaseconds before it encountered a normal particle of matter and there was mutual annihilation.

The development of containment force fields would potentially solve that problem…but Harry doubted the US military would be allowed access to the CERN facility, not unless they disclosed the existence of the Stargate program to Switzerland…which in the current political climate would not happen.

Harry's musing was interrupted when Teal'C entered the lab with a troubled look on his face.

"Ambassador Tyr," greeted the Jaffa, bowing his head.

"Teal'C, what can I do for you?"

"You were a Tok'ra for a time, were you not?"

"Yes, I counted myself as one of them for two years," said Harry with a sigh.

"And in that time, did you ever work with or encounter Freya, host to Anise?"

"Ah," said Harry, he should have seen this coming. "I take it by the fact that you are not wearing an Atoniek armband that it will not work on you. And that you are concerned for your friends?" Teal'C only nodded solemnly. "Well, what can I tell you about Anise? Yes, I did encounter her quite frequently in my work when I was a Tok'ra. She is a very driven Tok'ra. An avid and brilliant scientist, but her failing is that she loses sight of those around her and the consequences of her actions to them when she dives into her work too deeply. In fact, Anise is one of the main reasons I decided to leave the Tok'ra. One of her experiments nearly killed me."

Teal'C took in Harry's words and he seemed even more troubled.

"What is it, Teal'C?"

"Anise has reported the apparent success of the experiment to the Tok'ra High Council," said Teal'C. "They have revealed intelligence that Apophis is building a new more powerful class of Goa'uld mothership on PX9-757. All conventional attempts by the Tok'ra to sabotage the vessel have failed."

"And Anise hopes Sam, Daniel and Jack can take advantage of the armbands and succeed where the Tok'ra have failed," concluded Harry.

"Indeed," nodded Teal'C. "Their behavior has also been rather uncharacteristically reckless. Dr. Frasier believes the armbands have a near narcotic effect on the user."

"What is General Hammond's opinion on all this?"

"He is thankfully bowing to Dr Frasier's wisdom in this," reported Teal'C. "He has taken SG1 off active duty, he is doubtful of the control they have over their abilities and their judgment is suspect."

"He obviously realizes that he is being manipulated by the Tok'ra, good for him," mumbled Harry, staring into the screen of his laptop. A thought then occurred to Harry, he turned his gaze to Teal'C and frowned, "You think that SG1 will do it anyway? You think they will try to destroy the ship?"

"As I said, their judgment is clouded by the effect of the devices," nodded Teal'C.

And it went from their mouths to God's ears. Red alarm klaxons began going off all over the base, and the fact that no one was announcing what type of gate activity was occurring meant that something was wrong. Harry grabbed Teal'C and brought forth an Asgard jewel device. In the next instant they were transported directly into the gate room on level 28.

They arrived just in time to see Sam, Daniel and Jack begin to head up the embarkation ramp…the gate was active…presumably to PX9-757.

Jack turned to face Harry and Teal'C.

"Not this time, guys," he said, and with that all three turned into blurs of light as they ran at near impossible speeds straight through the event horizon, leaving behind only after-images.

The gate shut down…they had timed it perfectly…they were gone.

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"We have a problem," said Dr Frasier.

"Famous last words," said Harry with a sarcastic grin. They were seated in the briefing room an hour after SG1 had left without authorization to go on their mission of sabotage. Teal'C looked as if he was ready to throttle Anise already, who was standing unflinchingly beside the Doctor.

"Please continue, Doctor," said Hammond, narrowing his eyes at Harry.

"We have discovered the way the armbands work," stated Anise.

"Apparently, the device releases a virus into the wearer, it is this virus which taps into the natural abilities of the wearer and enhances it twenty fold," reported Dr Frasier. "However, Anise and I have found the presence of a naturally developing anti-body within the last samples provided by SG1. Their bodies are fighting the 'interface' virus…and winning."

"Are you saying that SG1 is out there in enemy territory with enhanced abilities that will suddenly disappear on them?" asked General Hammond with a thunderous voice.

"Yes," said Anise.

"How long do they have?" asked Harry.

"I can't be exact, but an educated guess…within the hour," said Dr Frasier grimly.

"Ambassador, Teal'C, get geared up and report down into the gate room yesterday," ordered Hammond with a frown. "The gate will be ready for you when you arrive."

"Yes, General," nodded Harry. He and Teal'C rose from the chair and ran to the armory.

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PX9-757

Harry and Teal'C emerged onto the planet and found that it was rather a lush and beautiful world that Apophis had chosen to build his new battleship. The gate was situated at the bottom of an incline of soft natural grass, which had been cleared to give an unobstructed line of fire to anyone who would come through. The Jaffa who would guard the gate would have a clear advantage of the high ground and could at their leisure dispatch any attacking force coming from the Stargate.

This did not make a bit of difference to three enhanced humans though. The entire Jaffa squadron guarding the gate was knocked out…not even the three Staff cannon emplacements could have done anything to stop SG1.

"Zat 'em?" asked Harry. Teal'C nodded. As the two walked up the hill they used their Zat guns to ensure that the Jaffa squadron would not awake before they could affect a rescue. As Harry and Teal'C crested the hill they finally caught sight of the unfinished battleship Apophis was building.

It still retained they basic pyramid central structure, but that was where any similarity with a Ha'tak ended. It was two hundred meters larger than a standard Ha'tak, making it near six hundred meters in diameter; it had two large rings that orbited the pyramid, which looked like all round coverage for weapon firing arcs, the main superstructure around the pyramid was still unfinished though and the unfinished battleship itself was resting on a mountain and additionally supported by anti-gravity engines.

They rushed down the opposite side of the hill and set a strong running pace all the way to the unfinished battleship. It took twelve minutes to reach the support structure for the battleship and another two to find the entrance SG1 used to get in.

They found Daniel within the very first corridor. He was lying exhausted on his back; the Atoniek armband he had worn had fallen off. He had apparently stumbled onto five heavy blocks of weapons grade naquadah…very valuable. Harry lifted his Asgard jewel device and the material dematerialized and was stored as energy within.

"Hey, guys," said Daniel weakly. "Thanks for coming after us." Teal'C hefted Daniel to stand and slung his arm around his shoulders, supporting the archeologist. "We rigged the coolant system to explode in a few minutes, the battleship itself will be destroyed fifteen minutes afterward."

"Where's Sam and Jack?" asked Harry urgently.

"Uh, I dunno exactly, we split up when I went after the naquadah," said Daniel vaguely.

"Ok, Teal'C, get Daniel to the entrance, I'll go after the others, if the bomb goes off, get your ass to the Stargate," said Harry and ran off before Teal'C could protest. Harry spread his mind out…searching…for the unique minds of Sam and Jack…he turned a corner…turned left…then right…down another corridor…they were just ahead.

Harry took in the scene with trepidation. Sam was trapped behind a forcefield barring the corridor while Jack was on the other side. Both their armbands were off and lying on the floor…they were helpless. Jack had already tried to disable the forcefield by prying apart the control keypad and smashing it, in sheer desperation. He and Sam were staring at each other intensely through the shield, emotions of anger, sadness…and…

Harry put it out of his mind.

"Colonel, out of the way!" shouted Harry, hefting his PR7. Harry altered his vision and saw the frequency oscillation that the shield operated at and cast a matrix into his weapon so that it fired energy at the exact inverse of that frequency. Jack dived out of the way as Harry fired a stream of plasma shots at full auto onto a specific section of the forcefield. The shield withered and shorted out as Harry's plasma ammunition ran dry.

Jack grabbed Sam by the arm and they ran as fast they could. It was then that two serpent guards appeared down the corridor. Harry had reloaded his PR7 just in time to send the two Jaffa scurrying for cover.

As they were turning a corner…the world rocked underneath their feet. Sending them all sprawling to the ground. The explosives on the cooling system had gone off.

"Fifteen minutes and counting, come on!" encouraged Harry, pulling a bone weary Sam and Jack to their feet. They arrived at the entrance two minutes later to find that Teal'C and Daniel had waited for them. "Dammit, I told you to get to the Stargate."

"We do not leave anyone behind," said Teal'C stoically, before turning and helping Daniel out of the support structure. Harry similarly supported Sam and Jack by running between them and slinging their arms about his shoulders.

They had just approached the DHD when the massive battleship finally groaned with the power overload caused by its reactor overheating.

"Ignore it!" shouted Harry, raising his Asgard jewel device and it glowed with an inner light and a subspace path was instantly formed in the mouth of the Stargate. He had thankfully thought ahead and also sent the iris code the instant the subspace path formed from his device.

The battleship exploded. A massive concussive shockwave spread out from it in a giant sphere. Putting on a last burst of effort they managed to hurl themselves through the event horizon just as the shockwave passed over the Stargate.

SG1 and Harry piled on top of each other as they fell through the event horizon in the SGC. Making sure that all their limbs were through Harry rolled over to shout, "CLOSE THE IRIS!"

With the grinding of a thousand swords the iris closed, and not a moment afterwards heavy debris kicked up by the explosion slammed against it. The path remained on for an agonizing few moments as the iris strained against the debris being destroyed against it…then finally…the path shut down.

Harry walked into the Infirmary and regarded the slowly recovering Sam, Jack and Daniel. All three had numerous Intravenous medications and supplements flowing into them to replenish their badly overtaxed bodies with electrolytes and vitamins. It was readily apparent now to Harry why the Atoniek civilization had died out. All their warriors using the armbands had eventually become immune to the 'interface' virus and as Murphy's Law dictated, it probably happened at the worst possible time (when they were at war with someone else) and they were swiftly defeated.

Harry blew into his steaming mug of coffee he had brought with him and took a tentative sip. _Perfect_, he thought.

"Is that coffee?" asked Daniel eagerly, sitting up in bed.

"Down boy," smirked Harry, speaking as if he was addressing a dog looking for his bone.

"Ha, ha," said Daniel wryly.

"You know you can't have any, besides, you're getting a lot more nourishment from the IV's than from eating at the moment, which is the whole point," stated Harry. "Anyway," he turned to face all three of them, "you'll be happy to hear Anise has gone back to the Tok'ra base on planet Vorash."

"Thank goodness," said Jack in relief.

"I can't believe she still wanted to get medical data from us," said Sam in an outraged voice.

"Apparently she believed that monitoring your recovery process will be helpful in further refining the technology," explained Harry. "She hopes that she can one day make a temporary version of the armbands that can be used like a drug and will be effective with Tok'ra physiology. But I highly doubt she'll succeed. The whole concept is flawed."

"Amen to that," said Jack.

"Ambassador, can I ask you a question?" said Sam with a thoughtful frown.

"Most certainly," said Harry, sipping into his coffee.

"When I was writing my book, you managed to catch my wrist, even though my hands were moving at an incredible speed," she stated.

"I have very good reflexes and visual acuity," said Harry with a grin. "And despite your hands moving so fast they were staying within the limited area of the keyboard, I merely anticipated where your wrist would go."

"But I also tried to break your grip, unsuccessfully," said Sam curiously.

Harry only smiled enigmatically in answer and finished his coffee with a last sip. "Well, I must be heading back to Seaworld, things to do, and the Mrs doesn't like it when I'm late…"

"And when do I get to meet your wife?" asked Jack with a smirk.

"Well next time you have vacation, tell me and I will arrange it," said Harry loftily.

Harry placed the empty coffee mug temptingly on Daniel's empty lunch tray and headed out of the infirmary.

"Hey!" said Daniel's voice indignantly.

888888888888888888888888888

_Seaworld…two weeks later…_

Harry stood on the soft white beach not a few hundred meters away from the stilted huts, with arms folded he stared out into the endless ocean, letting the rhythmic breaking of the waves sooth his senses. He wore only a short black leather skirt (as was tradition for Spartan men (2)) as he occasionally just had to get out of the chromesuit and let the breeze play over his skin freely.

He stood in contemplation of an issue that was bothering him lately.

The Tok'ra-Earth alliance.

The alliance had in the beginning looked to be very promising for the future. Earth could provide hosts for Tok'ra symbiotes with no risk of Goa'uld interference in the process. While in turn the Tok'ra would provide whatever intelligence it could in their common fight against the Goa'uld. Providing mutual aid as well, when the situation called for it.

Then…things started to sour for some unknown reason. Perhaps it was the patronizing attitude of the Tok'ra…their 'don't call us-we'll call you' approach…the manipulation of Anise in using the Atoniek technology for the Tok'ra's benefit only. Then a few days ago…a Jaffa Priestess named Sho'noc, had arrived in the SGC using Master Bratac's iris code…with an incredible claim.

She said that she had managed to communicate with her larval Goa'uld over the years and convinced it that the Goa'uld were evil, and it in turn stated that it was willing to defect to the Tok'ra.

Everyone was justifiably skeptical of the claim, no more so than Teal'C, who stated that it was impossible for a Jaffa to influence his larval symbiote. Harry on the other hand thought it was simply a rouse for the Goa'uld to infiltrate the Tok'ra.

But then, things changed. Sho'noc instructed Teal'C on how to commune with his own symbiote, and it worked to the surprise of everyone.

Reluctantly, the SGC made contact with the Tok'ra. And Anise was sent to investigate the possibility of welcoming Sho'noc's rapidly maturing symbiote into the Tok'ra fold. Harry understood the importance of this, having a new defector would mean the Tok'ra would gain the two thousand year old difference in genetic memory that separated the Tok'ra from the Goa'uld.

Anise returned later with word from the Tok'ra High Council that it was accepting the new defector into their ranks. Harry and SG1 accompanied Sho'noc to Vorash and within the Tok'ra's secret base they were introduced to the prospective host for the defector, a young man named Hebron of Parabel; whose world was conquered by the Goa'uld generations ago and he appeared eager to do his part for the Tok'ra cause.

Sho'noc's time ran out and the defecting symbiote had no choice but to leave her and unflinchingly Hebron offered himself. The symbiote leaped into the young man through the throat and not a few moments later the defector emerged. A new larval symbiote was placed into Sho'noc and she later recovered.

The defecting symbiote identified itself as Tanith and pledged himself to the cause of the Tok'ra in front of everyone. Harry was still doubtful of Tanith's sincerity and was clearly looking forward to hearing an interrogation of Tanith, but Anise stated that whatever intelligence gained which concerned Earth would be shared at an appropriate time.

Harry knew from his own experience as a Tok'ra that things were not as they seemed. And indeed, not a day later, Anise returned with Sho'noc's dead body. It was then that Harry knew for sure…Tanith had lied. And what shocked him more was when Anise told a bold faced lie to Teal'C and everyone else; he sensed that she uttered a falsehood when she explained that Sho'noc died because of the larval symbiote was too young and that Sho'noc had waited too long.

Harry kept his peace and did not call her on it. Just as he was contemplating how to make Teal'C realize that Sho'noc's death was not an accident, the Jaffa figured it out himself and after an autopsy and bloodwork by Dr Frasier…the truth was out.

And what was even worse, the Tok'ra knew that Tanith had not really defected. They wanted Tanith within their midst, where they could control what he saw and heard…spreading disinformation. Teal'C was understandably furious and his revenge on Tanith would have to wait.

Harry scuffed the beach sand with his toes absentmindedly. It was events such as these, which reminded him why he eventually chose to unblend with Jamilla. The Tok'ra's methods while effective at times…always left him with a bitter taste in his mouth. Their priority was never to their own and they sacrificed themselves too willingly into the jaws of the Goa'uld.

His musings were interrupted by the swishing sound of footsteps on the sand behind him. He turned and saw Apollonia approach. She wore open toe leather sandals with laces that snaked up her calf and ended just below her knees and a smile. Harry smiled appreciatively at the sight of her.

"_Good morning, my love_," she said, her eyes twinkling.

"_Morning_," he said, and they placed their hands on each other's faces, speaking of things that cannot be communicated by words. Their hands dropped and they embraced tightly against each other. Harry enjoyed the feeling of her lithe body being squeezed against his own and felt as if he spend the whole day like this. "_You've been performing magical rituals?_" he questioned; he judged this from the fact that she was nude (it was a requirement of the rituals, though she rarely walked about with clothes as was custom among the Ancient Greeks) and he felt the residual energy on her skin.

"_Only standard morning blessings, as such,_" she said in response. Apollonia had been on her way to become a Priestess at the time she and Harry first met. Obviously those plans had been cancelled during their courtship. But Harry knew she did them only as a means of reminding herself of her destroyed civilization and all those that perished, to give herself a sense of the familiar. "_Come with me, I want to show you something,_" she said and they broke the hug but their hands remained firmly intertwined as they walked from the beach and toward the island's interior.

After a few minutes of walking they broke through the brush into a clearing that Harry hadn't seen before. The clearing was also paved with what looked like newly cut stones and a knee high stone bench seating that formed a perfect circle of around ten meters in diameter. Rising in perfectly spaced intervals were Greek style columns.

"_What do you think?_" she asked expectantly.

"_It's perfect_," said Harry thoughtfully. "_It looks like you are building a reproduction of one of the temples on Sparta._"

"_One of the small ones in the countryside at least,_" said Apollonia whimsically. "_It's still missing the dome roof, I haven't managed to program the automated builder to do it_."

"_A dome is a relatively complex structure to erect_," said Harry with a grin. "_I'll program the builder later today_."

"_Thank you._" Apollonia stepped into the center of the burgeoning temple pulling Harry along with her. "_Do feel the power here?_" Harry closed his eyes and nodded.

"_Yes, a perfect circle…there is a good reason our ancestors chose to shape the Stargate as they did,_" said Harry solemnly.

"_Well, I brought us here for a slightly different reason,_" she said with quirked grin, and her hand snaked down to the leather skirt he was wearing and she un-ceremonially whipped it off and let it fall to the ground. She whispered into his ear.

"_You sure?"_

She nodded.

_SGC, Earth…_

The Stargate disengaged and Harry ran down the ramp without pausing. Teal'C met him and they walked at a brisk pace through the corridors of the SGC.

"What's the situation?"

"We believe SG15 were recently compromised by the Goa'uld," explained Teal'C.

"In what way?" asked Harry as two scientists in white lab coats had to scatter for their approach through the corridor.

"They were apparently victims of Goa'uld mind control technology," reported Teal'C stoically. "A mission was programmed within them…to be carried out when certain events unfolded before them."

"Such as meeting somebody?" asked Harry with a shrewd suspicion.

"Indeed, just yesterday, Major Graham of SG15, during a Tok'ra–Earth treaty seminar, pulled a Goa'uld hand held beam weapon the moment he saw High Councilor Per'sus of the Tok'ra and attempted to assassinate him," reported Teal'C. "The attempt was thwarted but two Tok'ra were killed and Major Graham killed himself immediately afterwards."

They walked into the elevator and it went on its long upward journey to the appropriate level for the isolation rooms.

"The Tok'ra Anise and Martouf are here with a device they believe is capable of detecting anyone influenced by the mind control technology or as she calls them 'za'tarcs'."

"They 'believe'…" snorted Harry, shaking his head. The elevator finished its journey to the appropriate floor and a few minutes later they entered the observation room looking down into a cleared out isolation lab; inside was a chair with restraints in which a rather pretty looking female soldier was strapped, who looked very nervous. Facing her was a device of clear Tok'ra design; large and curved with gold and neon purple colors and display controls and an eye shaped sensor jutting out…into which the strapped down soldier was staring. Anise was behind the controls tapping buttons and frowning into the displays.

"Ambassador," greeted General Hammond. Harry turned his attention to the other occupants of the observation room. In addition to the General, Jack, Sam and another Tok'ra was seated in chairs looking facing the large window into the lab.

"General," said Harry. "Martouf," bowed Harry to the Tok'ra, who smiled and bowed his head in return.

"It's good to see you again, Tyr," said Martouf. "How has the galaxy been treating you?"

"Well enough," replied Harry, and then turned his gaze into the lab. "Teal'C has brought me somewhat up to speed about the Za'tarcs. Can you perhaps explain what Anise is attempting to do?"

"She believes that the Za'tarcs are created by implanting a false memory to cover the programming within the mind," explained Martouf, "the device she is using on Lieutenant Astor,(the female soldier in the chair apparently) examines both conscious and subconscious and compares them as the person in question is being asked to recount events where they might have been compromised by the Goa'uld."

"And because there is a false memory in the conscious and not the subconscious, that allows you to compare the two and discover the programming," concluded Harry. "A good idea but has obvious flaws."

"It is an experimental technology, the Za'tarc detector," reiterated Martouf. "There's bound to be problems with it."

"So what has the results shown with Lt Astor?" asked Harry.

"There is clear indication of a false memory," said Martouf. "In addition she was in Major Graham's team on a recent mission where the programming most likely occurred. Anise is going to attempt to destroy the false memory and the Za'tarc programming together by creating a small amount of brain damage to the affected area in her mind."

"Sure, that's one way of doing it," said Harry wryly. "If you want to ensure Lt Astor's death."

"What do you mean?" asked Sam.

"This is the Goa'uld we're talking about," said Harry with clear exasperation. "Do you think that all they would do to protect the Za'tarc programming is a pithy little false memory? A brushing of the dirt under the proverbial rug?"

General Hammond frowned in consideration and moved towards the microphone to seemingly stop the procedure…but was apparently too late. Anise had just activated the device and a beam of multi-colored light hit Lt Astor's right eye and began moving up and down.

"Stop! Stop the procedure!" shouted the General.

"Shit…too late!" said Harry and rushed out of the observation room as fast as he could. By the time Harry was just outside the blast door sealing off the isolation room he could already hear shouts and gunshots going off inside. Two airmen were outside with drawn firearms.

"I advise you both to stay behind cover," said Harry, and before the two airmen could question him, he willed the blast door to open. Harry walked in the room to see that Lt Astor had gone bezerk. She had managed to break free from her restraints and appropriate a weapon from one of SFs assigned to guard her in the room…who was lying dead with bullet through the chest. Anise was taking cover behind the Zatarc machine.

Astor turned the handgun towards the observation window and fired three shots into it…making the glass shatter into a million cobwebbed lines, the people in the room took cover despite the fact that the glass could handle the slugs. In an effort to get Astor's attention away from the people up there he drew the Zatarced Lieutenant's attention.

"Lt Astor!" he shouted, standing unflinchingly in the middle of the room.

Astor turned the gun towards him and fired off three shots. The bullets were stopped three inches away from his chest by a shield that flared with a vivid electric green. Astor, seeing she couldn't win and that capture was inevitable began to bring the gun over to her own head. Harry had to hand it to the Goa'uld on this one…it was ruthless, but they did good work in the programming.

"No!" shouted Anise in desperation at seeing what was happening.

To cover for the use of his own powers he raised the ubiquitous Asgard jewel device and shot a Temporal-freezing matrix at Astor. The effect was instantaneous. Lt Astor was seemingly immobilized.

Everyone came out of cover and stared in astonishment at the frozen Astor, who was halfway bringing the gun to her own temple.

"Anise," Harry turned to her. "I suggest you think of something else. I think its clear that the Zatarc programming reacts self destructively to any attempts to alter it." He walked forward and wrenched the gun from Astor's frozen hands and handed it off to a nearby SF.

"What did you do to her?" said Sam, having entered the room and carefully examining Astor, but remained a cautious distance away.

"She is in a…restraining field…of sorts," answered Harry evasively.

"She's not even breathing," stated Anise with alarm.

"Oh, she's still breathing, don't worry," said Harry with a grin. "She's just doing it, very, very…very slowly."

"You've stopped Time for her?" asked Sam incredulously. Harry shrugged nonchalantly. "How's that possible? The energy required…"

"You've seen Thor open an inter-galactic subspace path in moments with one of these," said Harry gesturing to the jewel device. "Compared to that, the power required to stop Time around a person is rather trivial." Sam blinked with wide-eyes and shook her head in awe of the way Harry was casually referring to such energies.

"Well," said Jack firmly, getting into the conversation. "Ignoring the fact that Astor over here just became…well…a human statue, just what are we going to do to save her life?"

"I think the idea that Anise had was a start," said Harry with a nod towards the Tok'ra who was still staring at Astor. "But it lacks precision. Destroying the Zatarc program by destroying the part of the brain effected is like trying to kill a cockroach underneath your floor by bashing through it with a sledgehammer."

"So we need poison?" said Jack keeping with the metaphor.

"Don't take my metaphor too literally, Colonel," advised Harry. "Anise, have you ever considered approaching the Zatarc problem as if it was a computer virus?"

"It occurred to me," confirmed Anise. "But the brain is too complex to treat that way."

"That's true," conceded Harry. "So what do you do if you have a computer virus that you have no anti-virus for?"

"You format your hard drive," said Sam.

"Are you suggesting we erase everything Astor was and is?" said Jack incredulously.

"Not her whole mind, Colonel," sighed Harry wearily. "We merely 'format' the brain where the Zatarc program is located, by erasing the information stored in the effected neurons. I can't explain it in more simpler terms to you in English."

"Hey, that's right," said Sam. "When the Colonel had the Ancient's Repository downloaded into his mind, the Asgard removed the knowledge somehow…do you have the means to do something similar?" she asked Harry.

"I do," confirmed Harry. "But this particular device is not capable of the required function, I will need to return to Seaworld."

"Very well, get to it Ambassador," nodded Hammond. "Oh, and just how long will Lt Astor remain…like this?" He gestured at the unnaturally still woman.

"She will remain like that until I disperse the field," said Harry, "until then I suggest you perhaps move the Zatarc detecting to another isolation room."

A Stargate trip and half an hour later Harry was back within the SGC and walked into the secondary isolation room's observation post to find a grim looking group of people. A look into the isolation room showed a dark expression on Jack's face as he was unstrapped from the chair.

"What's their results?" asked Harry.

"It appears that Colonel O'Neill and Major Carter are both Zatarcs as well," said Martouf with a worried frown on his face, staring at Sam who had two SFs flanking her.

"Which memory has been duplicated?" said Harry astonished,

"It happened during their unauthorized mission to sabotage Apophis's prototype mothership," reported General Hammond. "Apparently, they were separated by a force field in a corridor when their Atoniek armbands failed. The Colonel attempted to shut down the force field and it's believed that this is when they were caught and the programming done…after which they were let go for you to find."

Harry considered this for a few moments, reviewing his own memories of the events of that day.

"I suppose it's possible," said Harry slowly. "But we should see if I can help Lt Astor…then I can help the Colonel and the Major."

When everyone returned in the original observation room Harry entered the isolation room with Anise, to find the still frozen Astor had slightly moved in the intervening time, thankfully it was slightly little more than an inch.

Harry stood directly in front of the crazed looking suicidal Lt Astor and raised another jewel device and mentally activated it. Soft white light shot out of it and hit the woman in the forehead. The moment it made contact, Harry closed his eyes and through his mind's eye he was presented with a mental landscape. Everything seemed normal on the surface, but at a right-angled dimension within the landscape there was an ugly unnatural protrusion, which shot out black light to other parts of the mind…motor controls, adrenaline, stamina, logical reasoning…all of them were being influenced. No doubt this was the Zatarc program. Harry guided the energy from the neural manipulator device towards this ugly portion of the mind…and instantly the Zatarc program perceived the threat and the black lines retreated and shot towards the energy intended to erase it.

Very soon, it became a power battle…the energy of the erasure device versus the Zatarc program using the very energy of its host to battle back. Harry gritted his teeth in frustration. Then on an impulse he threw in his own energy behind the device…the effect was immediate…the Zatarc program began to lose ground…pushed back and back…until finally it was backed into a corner and died under the strain.

Harry opened his eyes and released a breath, feeling like he had just run a sprint.

"Did it work?" asked Anise.

"Yes," said Harry with a satisfied grin. "The program is destroyed. However, a consequence is that Lt Astor has lost all memory of the mission she was on when she was compromised." Harry pulled out his original jewel device and simply raised it towards Astor…who promptly collapsed to the floor as the temporal field vanished under his command.

Astor was taken out on a stretcher as Sam was escorted in and strapped down into the chair.

"You, Ok?" asked Harry softly.

"Yeah," said Sam, her neck twitching in nervousness.

"Now, since your Zatarc program has not been activated yet, it will be consequently much harder for me to find it within your mind. I just warn you now, that I might stumble through some memories that you consider personal as I try to search for it."

"Can't you just…I dunno, go straight to the memory of me being trapped behind the forcefield?" asked Sam, looking twice as nervous now.

"The mind is not a book with an index page, Sam," explained Harry. "It has multiple facets in endless dimensions and can only be interpreted through a subjective viewpoint. I will narrow my focus as much as possible but realistically it's impossible for me not to stumble onto something that you don't want me to see."

Sam took a deep fortifying breath…and eventually nodded, knowing she had no choice. "Go ahead."

Harry raised the neural erasure device; still looking like the ubiquitous Asgard jewel device, and the soft white light once again was emitted and hit Sam on the forehead. To the outside observer, Harry stood in front of Sam with his eyes closed, the white beam of light almost seeming to connect them. After a near half an hour, everyone in the observation room was getting restless. Daniel was apparently just going to say something when the white light retreated back into the Asgard jewel and Harry opened his eyes.

"She is not a Zatarc," declared Harry, breathing slightly faster due to the exertion.

"What makes you say that?" asked Anise with a frown.

"I cannot speak of it in detail to protect Major Carter's privacy," said Harry solemnly. "But suffice it to say, she lied to you in your examination with the Zatarc device, only she didn't realize she was lying. When she recounted being trapped behind the forcefield, you asked her to elaborate on her feelings at the time…she was not honest with herself on her subconscious feelings…something which the Zatarc detector picked up."

"So it gave a false positive?" asked Sam, who had opened her eyes by now.

"In essence," confirmed Harry. "I believe that Colonel O'Neill will have the same result."

"Nevertheless, I'd like to be sure of that, Ambassador," said General Hammond. "If feel up to it of course," he amended, seeing Harry leaning against the restraining chair.

"I will be fine."

Soon after, Jack was brought in and strapped down into the chair as well. Harry drunk on some water and ate a piece of pie that Sam had brought for him, on the theory that the sugar would help him with his energy levels. The soft white beam of light was once again emitted and allowed Harry entry into Jack's mind. This time the search took a few minutes less and when it ended Harry looked up into the observation room.

"He also has no Zatarc program," declared Harry.

"Sweet," breathed Jack in relief and the SFs began to unstrap him from the chair.

"Ok, now what?" asked Daniel to the group. "All the active field personnel have been cleared, Astor is free of her program."

"Who has not undergone an examination yet?" asked Harry.

"Only you, Anise and Martouf," said Hammond.

"I have never been in a position where I could be compromised by the Goa'uld," said Anise for herself.

"Its unlikely that I would be a Zatarc," said Harry in turn. "My mind is not susceptible to any form of external manipulation."

"How is that possible?" asked Sam.

"My brain physiology is…unique," answered Harry carefully. "It's one of the reasons why I was abducted from Earth all those years ago. And to prove it further, assuming that the Zatarc programming is meant to derail the signing of the Tok'ra – Earth treaty, I will leave before tomorrow."

"Very well, Ambassador," said Hammond.

"Martouf, if you will," said Anise, and gestured to the Zatarc detector. Martouf, looking highly reluctant stood from his chair in the observation room and was soon seated and strapped down into the chair. The Zatarc detector was brought forth and after an initial scan, the questioning began. Harry had pulled up a chair of his own and seated himself in a corner of the room where he had a clear line of sight on Martouf.

The questioning continued for over an hour, Martouf had to recount all his own actions for the past year where he had exposure to the Goa'uld. It was when Anise began to ask questions about an infiltration into the Goa'uld Cronos' territory not a month ago that things became interesting. Martouf recounted a meeting with a contact on the central planet in Cronos' domain. He stated that it was uneventful and he had gotten the information from his contact and gotten out using a cloaked cargo ship.

Anise sighed heavily and stared at the display of the Zatarc detector.

"You are recounting a false memory, Martouf," she declared.

"That is not possible, I…it…can't…" said the Tok'ra beginning to stutter and suddenly without warning he began to scream and strain against the bonds that held him. Harry lifted his jewel device and Martouf was frozen in temporal field before the bonds that held the Tok'ra could snap.

"I take it Martouf avoided the testing done on the Tok'ra on Vorash?" asked Harry expectantly.

"Yes, now that I think about it," said Anise thoughtfully. "He arrived on Earth with me to begin testing the SGC personnel, he remained at my side as I did the testing of the Tok'ra."

"The Zatarc program must have concluded it to be the best place to hide from testing, it theoretically has access to all of Martouf's memories and would conclude that when you become too focused in your work, you would overlook him."

"And it was right," sighed Anise ruefully. "It's a pity we cannot leave him like this, the opportunity to actually study the Zatarc technology is invaluable."

"Indeed," acceded Harry. "So it seems Cronos doesn't want an alliance between Earth and the Tok'ra."

"That seems to be the case," said Anise.

"Just how could Cronos have found out about it though?" asked Hammond.

"I can't even begin to speculate on that, no Tok'ra operatives have been captured by Cronos in recent months, so there is no leak there," reported Anise.

"I guess that will remain an unanswered question," said Harry, "but there is no doubt about Cronos' motive, he fears the possibility of an alliance."

"Then that is all the more reason to go forward with it," said Hammond strongly. "Ambassador, get rid of that damn program in his head and let's get this over with."

"Yes, General."

The program erasure for Martouf took almost an hour; things were made much more difficult with the presence of the Lantash symbiote within Martouf. Harry had to first sort out where the program resided, in the mind of the host or symbiote. When he was finally sure it was within Martouf…he spent the rest of the time sifting through memories…he had to make sure he categorized whether the memory was from Lantash or Martouf before attempting to search for the Zatarc program. Finally, the task was complete.

Harry opened his eyes only to fall on his behind from mental exhaustion.

"I seriously need a nap," he said with a weak grin.

"You OK?" asked Sam worriedly, helping him stand upright again.

"Just tired," said Harry. "Sorting through a blended mind is much more taxing," he said in explanation.

"I can somewhat imagine that," said Sam.

"Help me get to the gate room," instructed Harry. "I can't be here for the summit."

"You can certainly wait and rest a bit," she chided back.

"I don't want there to be any doubt that I'm not a Zatarc," argued Harry and with Sam's help headed out of the isolation room.

The next day, on Seaworld, Harry received a subspace message from the SGC.

The Tok'ra – Earth Alliance had been formalized.

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_A/N: Not a terribly exciting chapter, but I needed to lay down the foundation for the future story arcs. (1) You see this occur in the first episode of Season 2 where Apophis has two motheships in Earth orbit and in retaliation two nuclear missiles enchanced with naquadah are launched..,to explode against the shields to no effect. (2) If you've seen Brad Pitt's 'Achilles' battle outfit in 'Troy' then you have a visual idea of what the skirt looks like. _


	12. Chapter 12

_**Chapter Twelve – Tangents**_

Harry breathed in the fresh soggy morning air. It bothered him sometimes that he spent so much time on Earth, but only remained within the confines of the SGC. To put it simply he missed his home planet. The reasons for basically remaining within the SGC were varied and many in his own mind, and they were all good reasons but he was seriously developing a bit of cabin fever regarding the SGC.

He was dressed in unmarked green military battle dress uniform (BDUs) that was standard issue for SGC field personnel and the rather constricting combat boots that went with it, and leaning against two blue sedans parked out on Runway 18 of the highly secure and classified landing strip just ten minutes distant by car from Cheyenne Mountain.

With him were Jack, Sam, Daniel and Major Davis – the only one wearing his blue Air Force Uniform - all of whom were staring up into the sky. Jack had brought along a high-powered set of binoculars for this occasion and was occasionally staring through it up into the sky. Harry didn't really know why he bothered, as the cloud cover made visibility problematic at best.

"Teal'C was ordered to push the envelope, sir," stated Sam. "I'm sure he'll be back soon."

"Well, that'd be nice," said Jack, sarcastically looking into his binoculars again for any sign of Teal'C.

"Where else would he go?" asked Daniel, ever the voice of reason.

"Good point," conceded Jack eventually.

Their attention was drawn to an approaching military HUMVEE painted in black. The wide-bodied successor to the venerable Willis Jeep used so extensively in World War 2 approached at a leisurely pace. Harry saw the immediate reason behind Jack's subtle impatience with Teal'C. The license plate of the Humvee was blue and adorned with three stars and all the soldiers it passed snapped to attention and saluted it.

The Humvee stopped next to the sedans Harry and SG1 had arrived in and first out was General Hammond. Sam and Jack immediately snapped to attention, while Daniel and Harry merely stood slightly more respectfully.

"Well, here we go," muttered Jack.

Major Davis walked to the Humvee and opened the door, allowing General Hammond to climb out. Jack smiled at his boss. The Humvee drove away to reveal the reason for three stars on the vehicle. Standing in the slightly more informal blue Air Force uniform was a severe looking dark skinned man, his shoulder boards of three stars indicating he was a Lieutenant General. Jack and Sam saluted him, and promptly the three star saluted back.

"Is there a problem, Colonel?" asked Hammond.

"No, Sir. I'm sure Teal'C just felt like taking her for a spin…around the world," grinned Jack.

"Well, while we're waiting, I have someone who would like to meet your team and the Ambassador," said Hammond.

Major Davis took that as his cue, "Colonel Jack O'Neill, Major Samantha Carter, Doctor Daniel Jackson, Ambassador Harry, allow me to introduce Lieutenant General Vidrine." Introductions went quite smoothly until it was Harry's turn.

"Ambassador," said Vidrine.

"General," Harry slightly bowed his head.

"I understand that you are the mind behind some of our most recent advancements?" enquired Vidrine.

"I did nothing but bring forth ideas that anyone could have come up on their own," said Harry with a smile. "Apart from the PR7, everything else I merely facilitated at best."

"You're too modest, Ambassador," commented Vidrine, who now turned to Jack. "General Hammond has been telling me nothing but good things about you and your team."

"Has he, Sir?" said Jack, in a humorous tone. "Well, then I'm sure he's left something out."

"Such as?" said Vidrine in a sudden serious tone of voice, which made Jack lose his grin in an instant. Harry had to clamp down his jaws to keep a snort of humor from escaping. As an excuse for not answering Jack spoke into the hand-held radio link with Teal'C.

"Teal'C, ya there, buddy?"

"Look immediately to the south-west," crackled the voice of Teal'C over the radio. Everyone turned to look in the direction. Out of the clouds what looked like a Death Glider swooped over them at extremely high speed, a major sonic boom following in its wake that deafened everyone temporarily, the wind gusting powerfully behind it. The Death Glider was at first glance hardly any different from the standard models in use, but at newly fixed hardpoints to the sides of either energy cannons were large missiles, something very different from the Goa'uld model.

"What in God's name is that?" shouted Vidrine over the rush of air.

"That, Sir, is the X-301 Interceptor," said Davis.

"Looking good, Teal'C," said Jack into his radio. "Give us another flyby, going low and slow."

"As you wish, O'Neill," said Teal'C's voice.

"It's a hybrid craft, Sir," continued Davis, "made with a combination of good old American know-how and two Death Gliders SG1 salvaged a couple of years ago."

"It's easily the most impressive craft I've ever seen," admitted General Vidrine, as the Death Glider made a near prancing turn in full view that exposed the underbelly of the craft. "How does it fly?"

"I believe I can answer to your satisfaction, General," piped Harry up before Sam could say anything. Harry knew that Sam's 'technobabble rants' as Jack termed them, could confuse almost everyone on the planet, except for himself and Dr Lee. "Simply put, the craft uses gravity itself for thrust, and because of an inertial compensation system the pilot is immune to G-forces at speeds that would normally be fatal. It's capable of both atmospheric and space flight."

"Fascinating," said Vidrine.

The craft made one last turn before it basically came to an easy stop not twenty meters away. The cockpit panels split open and the large figure of Teal'C climbed out and slid along the curve of the Glider almost like a playground slide, and walked away while taking off his flight helmet as ground crews scrambled to secure the X301 from flight.

Teal'C with his helmet secured under his arm approached the assembled group watching the test.

"I always like to get a view of the man in the cockpit," stated Vidrine seriously. "How does she fly, son?"

"The vehicle performed within the expected parameters," said Teal'C stoically to the General.

"Woo-Hoo!" shouted Jack, causing everyone to look at him. "Sorry, Sir," he said to Vidrine, while everyone was grinning behind the General's back. "I couldn't help bet get caught up in Teal'C's enthusiasm."

"Upon completion of the flight test program, we intend to deploy the X301 in an orbital defense role, under your command, Sir," said Major Davis, also grinning.

"In all seriousness," said Vidrine, and turned to Jack sarcastically, "if that's all right with you Colonel? How effective can a single craft be against a potential fleet of Goa'uld attack vessels?"

"That's what these tests will determine, General," said Harry. "But the X301 is at best, merely a stopgap measure, until construction on the first squadrons of X302-As are completed, with the first prototype rolling off the line at the end of this year."

"Yes," said Vidrine thoughtfully. "Something for which we have you to thank for again, I'm told that without your direction it would have taken us at least another two years to field the X302."

"While that may be, General," conceded Harry. "Earth does not have the luxury of time. The recent improvement in the faster-than-light (FTL) capabilities of the Goa'uld makes it ever more economically viable for them to attack. They might call the Asgard bluff."

"I for one hope the Goa'uld don't play poker then," commented Vidrine glibly. "So what's next?"

"I take second seat for an air-to-air live fire test," said Jack with an excited grin.

"Light that candle, boys," said Vidrine with a satisfied nod.

"Yes, Sir," nodded Jack. Teal'C however, clearly did not understand the Earth euphemism, and raised an enquiring eyebrow to Jack.

"Does General Vidrine intend to engage in some form of candle burning ritual?"

"Yes, that's it exactly," grinned Jack and headed off with Teal'C to get in his own flight suit for the test. While the rest of the assembled group climbed into the sedans and drove off the secure airfield back towards the SGC where the tests would be coordinated from.

Half an hour later found Harry standing pensively next to General Vidrine in the background of the control room overlooking the Stargate. Sam, Major Davis and Daniel were seated at the positions normally occupied by the Stargate technicians. The computers were all displaying status screens and radar images from various sources, ground based and from military satellites. It currently showed the X301 still on the landing tarmac of the airfield as Jack and Teal'C were getting prepped for the flight.

"Anything on your mind, Ambassador?" asked Vidrine. Harry turned to meet the fierce General's narrowed eyes.

"It's just that I advised Area 51 to not build the X301," said Harry with a sigh. The General raised an eyebrow to invite elaboration. "Simply put, the hybrid nature of the X301, could cause system conflicts that are unforeseeable, due to the complexity of the technology we are talking about."

"So you aren't confident that the X301 will perform up to spec?"

"General, frankly, I'm amazed Area 51 even managed to get it off the ground," declared Harry honestly.

They were interrupted when the dot that represented the X301 began to move and showed that it was traveling at great speed towards the target area.

"Well, for better or worse, Ambassador," said Vidrine, "we're committed to seeing this through now."

Jack's voice crackled over the speakers in the control room, "Request permission to proceed with weapons test."

"You're a go, Digger 1," said Davis into the radio.

"Proceeding to target area," said Teal'C voice this time.

"Roger that," said Sam. "You're a go for phase 2."

"That's them?" asked Daniel, pointing to the screen, showing the blip that represented the X301.

"The X301 is equipped with stealth technology, so we've installed a signal beacon that allows only us to track it," explained Davis.

"These blips," said Sam pointing to two blips that the X301 was rapidly closing in on, "represent the target drones. The X301 is carrying two AIM-120A air to air missiles."

"Major, are you suggesting a slammer missile is capable of taking out a Goa'uld mothership?" asked Vidrine skeptically.

"The missile, instead of carrying the standard tri-ox high explosive, is carrying pure weapon's grade naquadah – which we recently learned to enrich thanks to a large sample retrieved on a mission a few months ago," explained Sam, nodding to Harry. "Which means the energy being released is increased in massive orders of magnitude, enough to weaken any shield. But we've also affixed a shield modulator to the tip of the missile, that should, in theory, allow it to bypass the shield and hit the hull of a Goa'uld mothership directly."

"Beginning attack run now," came Teal'C's voice over the speakers.

Harry stared at the vectors of the X301 and frowned…it looked like Teal'C was going to overshoot the targets if he kept going at that angle of attack.

"Digger 1, you're going to overshoot," advised Sam into the radio.

That was when the blip that represented the X301 disappeared and was replaced with the words TRACKING FAILURE…CAUSE UNKNOWN.

"Oh boy," said Harry, his sense of wrongness flaring.

"Digger 1? Digger 1? This is flight…" said Sam into the radio…only static was the response. "They're not responding."

"We're experiencing atmospheric interference," declared Davis, listening to the sound with earphones.

"Their last vector did put them on a course out of the atmosphere," commented Harry, moving forward to stare at the computer screens.

"Major Carter?" asked General Vidrine expectantly.

"They were approaching the targets, sir, when they went into a steep vertical climb, they've left the atmosphere, we're attempting to reaquire now…"

"Are you saying they've gone into orbit?" asked Daniel with a worried frown.

"No, she's saying they're headed straight into space," said Harry with sigh.

"You said the 301 was capable of space flight," commented General Vidrine.

"It wasn't part of the test, Sir," said Sam grimly.

"Teal'C wouldn't do this intentionally, there has to be something wrong," said Daniel firmly.

"A malfunction?" asked General Hammond.

"Must be, Sir," said Sam.

"Get me the shuttle action officer at space command," ordered Hammond.

"The shuttle would only help them General if they'd remained in orbit," said Harry with a grim frown, looking at the vectors scrolling across the computer screen. "The last vector reading we got on the 301 would put it well out of Earth orbit by now and into interplanetary space."

"We're attempting to reacquire using NASA deep-space radar, with the DSP and NORAD data we should be able to get a reading on their position and focus a tight beam satellite radio transmission," said Sam.

It took ten minutes to finally get a good reading on the X301 and correlate a radio signal to its position.

"Digger 1? This is flight, do you read?" said Daniel into the radio. "Digger 1, come in?" There was only silence and a slight crackle of distortion over the radio link. "They're still not responding," he said in frustration.

"NASA is boosting the signal now," said Davis, listening to the feed from the space agency in his ear.

"It's not a problem of power," said Harry, staring at the real-time diagram of the solar system and the blip of 301 in relation to it. "You're not using subspace, but standard radio communications here and the numbers indicate the X301 is doing over four hundred and fifty kilometers a second."

"So?" asked Daniel.

"Radio signals only travels at the speed of light," said Harry patiently. "They're already a light minute away from Earth."

"Time delay," stated Sam in frustration. And sure enough his point was proven when only now Jack's voice came over the radio.

"Flight, we have a problem."

"Digger 1, this is Flight, we are reading you five by five. We have reacquired your position. Be advised, there is a time delay with communications due to distances involved. Please give sitrep. Transmission sent at 1425 Zulu," said Sam into the radio.

"Good thinking, Major," said Davis.

"General Hammond," said Daniel, "perhaps I should contact our allies capable of interstellar flight and ask for assistance."

"Very well," nodded Hammond, "I'll assign SG2 to assist you."

"George," said Vidrine, "perhaps it'll be best if I return to the Pentagon, see what our people can contribute from there. I'm just getting in the way here."

"Yes, Sir," nodded Hammond and traded salutes with his fellow General before the man left the control room.

"Dr Jackson," called Harry, before the archeologist could leave to gather SG2. "I would advise that you contact the Tok'ra first, the Tollan homeworld is too far away and their FTL capability isn't that great." Daniel nodded and rushed out of the control room.

"I have an idea, Sir," declared Sam to General Hammond, staring at the diagram of the solar system. "But a whole lot of things have to go right for it to work. We need to wait for the Colonel's sitrep before I can explain."

Harry didn't know what miracle idea she had to get her teammates out of this debacle, and after a few minutes Jack's response finally came through.

"Yeah…Flight, Digger 1, we read you-we have lost control of the craft due to some sort of recall device. Apparently, the scum-sucking, slimy, snake-assed Apophis installed it in his Death Gliders. Controls are NOT responding, negative thrusters and reaction control system…we are purely ballistic."

Harry saw Sam close her eyes and bow her head in near despair. His own reaction was merely to rest his head against his hand as he sat in front of the computer, staring at the telemetry.

_I am going to have a _serious _conversation with those engineers at A-51_, thought Harry sourly.

"Dammit!" exclaimed Sam slamming her hand on the console. "I was counting on them having some reaction control."

"What was your plan, Major?" asked Hammond.

"Their trajectory puts them on a relatively close flyby of Jupiter," she explained, tapping a few commands into the computer…and a curving course line was drawn passing by the gas giant. "If they had at least some maneuvering capability we could have done a sling-shot maneuver and send them on a course straight back to Earth."

"Send your idea to them anyway," said Harry, "perhaps they can think of something." Sam nodded and sent off the idea through the radio.

Ten minutes later and a reply came through.

"Flight, this is Digger 1," said Jack's voice. "We have negative nudging capabilities on our trajectory…stand by, Flight…(half a minute passed)…Flight, this is Digger 1, we may, I say again MAY, have two AIM120 Alpha rocket motors at our disposal. Can we override the release mechanism and ride them through burnout? If so, we need to calculate when, where, and duration of burn. Digger 1 at 1458 Zulu."

Harry, Sam and Major Davis began to frantically type into the computers, using navigation software and Calculus programs to model the problem.

"No," said Harry eventually, shaking his head. "Their velocity is too great, the rocket motors on those missiles are strong enough, but it's a problem of duration, there's not enough Delta V in them."

"But what if we delay the firing of the port side missile by a few moments, that should help," said Sam. Harry factored that into his own model…

"No, still not enough," said Harry with a sigh.

"Damn, are you sure?" she asked in a sudden angry voice.

"Check my calculations for yourself," invited Harry wearily and rolled back on wheels of his chair and allowed Sam to similarly roll into the spot he had occupied. She tapped at the computer angrily and eventually her head dipped again.

"Digger 1, this is Flight," said Sam into the radio. "We calculate there is not enough Delta V for a sufficient duration burn."

The reply ten minutes later was, "Flight, Digger 1, we'd rather try something, anything…than be stuck out here for the next seven hundred years as this thing heads back to the snakehead's homeworld."

"General?" asked Sam.

After a long moment's consideration Hammond said, "Let them try. Even if it doesn't work, it'll at least keep their spirits up until we can get the Tok'ra's help."

Harry also supposed it was a matter of pride to have tried everything possible with the current resources Earth had at its disposal. Major Davis soon had an override procedure ready and broadcasted it to the stranded craft. Sam followed by calculating the ignition time and sending it off. And then they waited.

Harry clearly felt at this point that he was spoiled by subspace communications. Using standard radio for anything was something the Asgard hadn't done in nearly a hundred thousand years. Finally, after a half an hour Sam announced that the burn was complete.

"Preliminary data coming in…" she said, the targeted course was projected in red, while actual course was done in white…there was still a large discrepancy. Sam rubbed the bridge of her nose wearily. "Digger 1, this is Flight, there is no joy on the burn. I'm sorry, Colonel. It's as we calculated, the missiles just did not have sufficient thrust to achieve the desired course change. Your current trajectory takes you out of the Solar System and into the Oort cloud, which you should reach in…a few months. We're still thinking down here, so don't give up. Transmission ends 1813 Zulu." Sam nearly looked like she wanted to cry and Major Davis had a grim sadness on his face.

It was at that point that a fully geared up and SG2 and Daniel entered the gate room for their journey to Vorash to enlist whatever aid the Tok'ra could offer. Sam noticed it and moved to the dialing computer and began startup procedures to establish a subspace path. It was as the first chevron was locked in place that an idea occurred to Harry as he stared at the grinding inner ring of the Stargate. By the time the fourth chevron was encoded he was somewhat sure it could be done.

"Major," said Harry, "stop the dialing, I have an idea."

"What is it?" asked General Hammond.

"I can get a ship here much faster than the Tok'ra could, even if they have a cargo ship relatively nearby in interstellar terms," said Harry slowly.

"What? How?" asked Sam in response, as the fifth chevron encoded.

"I will explain, but first stop the dialing," said Harry patiently. Sam tapped the clear button on the dialing computer and the gate stopped rotating with a whine as power drained from its massive capacitors. "General, I think we need to convene in the briefing room for this."

The General nodded and told Major Davis to keep in contact with the Glider. Five minutes later Harry stood in front of an expectant looking Sam, Daniel and Hammond in the briefing room.

"Major Carter asked how I could get a ship here, well…I'm not talking about asking the Asgard for help, they're deeply pressed for ships to fight the Replicators…I have a ship berthed on Seaworld that is capable of traveling through a Stargate."

"You mean like that fighter I flew second seat with Teal'C on when we rescued SG1 from Hathor less than two years ago?" asked General Hammond. Harry was not here at that time, but he was very familiar with SGC mission reports.

"Yes," nodded Harry. "It is a small multipurpose exploration vessel (MEV) that uses the Stargate network as a backbone for its interstellar capability, while it has sufficiently powerful sublight engines to give it a good intra-solar capability as well…" Harry trailed off and frowned.

"But there's a problem," stated Daniel, "otherwise you would have mentioned this earlier."

"Yes," nodded Harry. "As I said, it's an _exploration_ vessel, not a Search and Rescue (SAR) craft. There is no way for the Colonel and Teal'C to enter the MEV conventionally from space, entry and egress is done through a rear hatch, which has no airlock system. The only way to get them out of the glider and into the MEV is for me to try and interface an Asgard transporter module with the MEVs systems."

"And you're not sure it will work?" asked Hammond.

"No, the MEV is not a ship of Asgard design, it will require improvisation," said Harry glancing at Sam meaningfully.

"You want my help?" she asked, astonished.

"Two heads are better than one," he said, "besides it wouldn't hurt for you gain some more experience with these technologies."

"Ambassador, if you are confident you can do this…" said Hammond, trailing off.

"With Major Carter I'm sure we can get it done in time…" said Harry.

"I'm afraid time is something we don't have much of any more," said the voice of Major Davis from the steep stairwell as he walked into the briefing room. "I just received word from the 301, apparently, when the missiles cooked off they detached and collided with the craft…life support was damaged."

"How long do they have?" asked Hammond grimly.

"Twelve hours," stated Davis, "we can maybe get that to fifteen hours if they conserve power by switching off non-essential systems."

"Then we have half that to modify the MEV, considering we still have to fly halfway across the solar system," said Harry.

"Ambassador, Major Carter, you have a go."

88888888888888888888888888

The Stargate had been fired up in record time and ten minutes later Harry and Sam stepped out of the Seaworld Stargate.

"Wow," said Sam, staring at the natural beauty of the island around her, despite the fact that they were pressed for time.

"My exact sentiment when I saw this for the first time," said Harry with a grin. He raised a jewel device in his hand and sent a mental command. He and Major Carter were enveloped in two columns of white light and vanished from the island. They materialized in a corridor within the underwater lab complex and immediately began walking down it, with Sam following Harry's lead.

"We're underwater," stated Sam as they passed a window with a breathtaking view of underwater seascape.

"Yes, this entire complex is submerged," said Harry as they finally came to a stop next to a large door. Harry pressed the jewel next to the door and it parted to reveal a very large room beyond; it was easily fifty meters in length, width and ten meters in height and was lit brightly, various control pedestals and workstations were scattered across the perimeter of the room. What caught the eye though was what Sam assumed was the MEV; and she immediately judged Harry as correct in saying that the Asgard did not design the ship.

The MEV looked roughly like someone had taken a twenty two foot diameter (the width of the mouth of a Stargate) cylinder and cut it out at a twenty five degree angle, the hull was bronze colored and grooves ran all along the cylindrical hull that went up and down in right angles. The front of the ship had a large forward viewport and she could vaguely see two seats in the darkened interior of the vessel, no doubt for pilot and co-pilot.

"Where are the engines?" she asked, looking for anything that looked remotely like a sublight engine.

"They are hidden within two extendable nacelles that pop out of the rear hull when the ship is in flight," said Harry and they walked forward towards the MEV. Sam could now see what looked like writing, located in a band underneath the forward viewport…it was…she gasped.

"It's a ship of the Ancients," she said in awe.

"I knew it wouldn't take you long," said Harry with a grin. "Yes, the Ancients used these craft to explore and do surveillance on worlds they had seeded with life."

"How did you find it?" said Sam, running her hands across the seamless hull in fascination.

"That's a rather long story, something we don't have time for," he gently reminded her. Sam pulled her hand away from the MEV as though scalded and turned to Harry with a determined look.

"So what do we do?"

Harry gestured her to follow and they walked around the craft to the rear, where Harry pushed a button and large rear section of the hull opened smoothly to form a boarding ramp that allowed access into the darkened interior of the MEV. Harry walked into the rear compartment and the ship immediately responded happily to his presence and the lights came on. Sam followed nervously but her eyes roved around and took in everything she saw.

Harry reached up to the roof of the rear compartment and pulled open a panel, exposing clear squarely cut crystals, slotted perfectly into grooves within, the crystals glowed with an inner blue light which seemed to flow through them, nearly like blood through the veins of the body.

"These are the master control conduits of the MEV, something you are going to quickly become acquainted with over the next few hours," said Harry, gesturing to the crystals. The next moment a black curved Asgard control panel with a seamlessly attached transporter module and a programming tablet materialized on the seats that faced each other in the rear compartment. Harry picked up the tablet and began tapping.

"Now, as I said on Earth, the Asgard and Ancient systems are not compatible, which means I have to design an interface from scratch," said Harry, he stood and pulled out a lead of what looked like flexible fiber optic wire and attached it to one of the control conduits. "What I need you to do is reroute certain control pathways when I tell you to, not before, understand?" She nodded. Harry reached into the conduits and pulled another fiber optic wire out of and handed it to Sam. "This is what you'll use, see the tip?" She nodded. "That is the tool you'll use, to reroute, you simple touch a pathway with it and draw it towards where you want to go on the crystal. I'll give you instructions on what to do and when."

Harry began to focus in earnest now and his hands danced on the tablet. "Ok, find the top left crystal."

"Got it."

"The pathway is currently traveling at a forty five degree angle, I want you to move it to eighty two degrees relative to the base of the crystal." Sam did so and there was a slight tweeping sound to come from the crystal. "Good, that's perfect." Harry began typing again. They continued in this fashion for nearly two hours. Harry would program, then give Sam instructions on what to reroute and how.

"I'm sorry," said Sam eventually, shaking her head, "I know we're pressed for time, but I just have to know what I'm accomplishing here, I've lost count of the amount of pathways I've adjusted."

"You're adjusting the power source of the MEV," said Harry, his hands never ceasing their tapping. "More specifically, the frequency output, you realize just how much power is required to turn a person into a matter-energy stream, now while the MEV has more than enough for it, the power itself isn't compatible with the Asgard transporter module."

"So I'm trying to make the power of the MEV more palatable for the transporter module," concluded Sam, "while you're designing a software interface for the two systems."

"Correct," said Harry with a grin. "And I think we're ready to run our first test, my interface program seems to be holding, the module is accepting input from the MEVs sensors. Now, I'll be piloting the MEV, you'll have to operate the transporter, so head over to the module," she did as instructed and sat down next to the obsidian black module, "the largest jewel controls co-ordinates in the three Cartesian axes of space so simply move it towards your target and program destination coordinates after fixing the point of origin."

"Got it," said Sam, moving the jewels and the small display on the module lit up. "What am I targeting?"

"We need to simulate bio-matter transport, so please focus your targeting scanner two levels down, and towards the northwest of the complex, there is a small kitchen, choose what you want to eat and initiate transport."

"The sensors on this thing are amazing," said Sam with wide eyes. "How about this…"

A small column of white light flashed on the floor between the seats and resolved to form a puddle of unrecognizable goo that immediately began to disintegrate in front of their eyes.

"And that was supposed to be…?" asked Harry lightly.

"I targeted what looked like a bacon egg sandwich," said Sam with a disgusted expression on her face. Harry raised his own jewel device and the mess vanished instantly.

"At least we solved the power problem, otherwise the transporter wouldn't have even engaged or at worse…exploded," said Harry with a happy go lucky grin and turned back to the tablet to find the flaw in the interface program.

"You're saying we could have just been incinerated?" said Sam with a gulp.

"Yes," said Harry in an unconcerned fashion. Over the next hour they performed another three transports…each one turning into a puddle of primordial goo instead of edible food. It got to the point where Harry grabbed another computer tablet, loaded a translation program and had Sam help with the programming.

"By the Infinite Universe! What is the problem?" growled Harry in angry frustration, three further unsuccessful transports and two hours later; shaking the tablet computer as if it was a person he was throttling around the neck.

"What if the systems are just too incompatible?" suggested Sam. "I mean, the amount of technological development between the transporter module and the tech that makes up the MEV must be at least thousands of years apart."

"But a lot of the Asgard tech we know today was developed in conjunction with the Ancients when they were still around," countered Harry in turn. "The systems should work together."

"Perhaps, but we would need a lot more time than six hours, of which we have already used five," said Sam grimly.

"So what do you suggest?"

"What if, instead of designing an interface program between the two systems, we wipe the Asgard software clean and use the MEVs Ancient software as a basis, and load it into the transporter module," suggested Sam.

"Ah, I see where you're going with this," said Harry with a jubilant grin. "Of course since the MEV wasn't designed to have a transporter, we'd need…"

"…an Ancient transportation program," they chorused together.

"Like that which governs a Stargate…"

"…no Ring transporter, we'd just need to patch the software to allow remote transportation," said Harry triumphantly. "You start erasing the Asgard program…I'll be back with what we need." Harry was consumed in a column of white light and vanished. Sam hurried and got busy deleting the software on the module…while not as simple as formatting a hard drive, she eventually found a way to delete the program by causing a recursive feedback loop in the programming.

Harry returned in a flash of white light and held a crystal in his hand. "This is master program crystal of a Ring transporter," he said and kneeled next to the obsidian black module and ran his finger along its side. There was a beep and a panel opened to reveal the glowing innards of the module…he moved his jewel device to point within (sticking ones fingers into those circuits was not advisable), the now blank Asgard control crystal came floating out and the Ring crystal went in.

"Ok," said Harry heaving a relieved sigh as the crystal was accepted. It did not bear thinking if that crystal had touched a neighboring conduit carrying power. He shut the panel and began to tap on the controls of the module as fast as he could…writing the program patch. Sam had nothing to do for this part, and had taken to pacing up and down in the cramped compartment.

Ten minutes before their self imposed six-hour deadline Harry tapped a button and stopped.

"What?" said Sam urgently.

"I think I've got it," said Harry in near disbelief.

"Well, try to beam something," snapped Sam. Harry nodded and moved the appropriate jewel and a few moments later the whining hum of the transporter was heard and a perfect tuna sandwich materialized on the seat. Sam approached it and picked it up, poking it with her finger and feeling to see if anything was missing or wrong with it…satisfied she bit into it.

"Good," nodded Sam with a grin.

"So what do you say we go rescue some stranded pilots?" asked Harry rhetorically and entered the forward compartment for the first time and it lit up, allowing Sam to see it for the first time. The first thing that caught her eye was the prominent Stargate dialing device, situated between the two pilots seats and merging ergonomically and seamlessly with the forward control panels. All thirty nine Stargate symbols were there.

Harry flung himself into the left seat and it slid forward towards the control panel; Sam couldn't see how you could control an obviously complex craft such as this with no buttons at all, for there were none whatsoever on the control console…merely seamless 'plastic' for lack of a better word…there was no pilots yoke, or throttle, no altimeter…nothing.

She uncertainly got into the co-pilots seat and observed Harry as he simply placed his hands on the clear plastic in front of him and it immediately lit up a bright blue under his hands. The rear compartment door abruptly raised itself and sealed. Sam heard the strange whine of the engines engage and the MEV lifted off the floor. She was startled as she suddenly heard a different mechanical sounding whine that was much more deeper than the engines, which abruptly stopped.

"Don't worry, that's just the engine nacelles extending," said Harry, his eyes looking strangely unfocused. Abruptly another noise was heard from above and Sam watched in astonishment as the roof retracted above them to show swirling ocean that was being held back only by a flaring gold force field of some kind. The MEV tilted upwards slightly and abruptly shot forward and into the ocean, not two seconds later they broke through the surface and rapidly ascended into the air.

And in all this, Harry had not moved a single muscle to pilot the craft. The answer to this hit Sam soon afterward.

"You're flying this ship with your mind?" she concluded with wide amazed eyes.

"Something like that," grinned Harry. The MEV began a swooping turn towards the main island that housed the Stargate. "Ok, Major, we're in range, the Stargate will accept commands, begin dialing." Sam was unused to the layout, so took much longer to dial than she normally would with a standard DHD.

Harry brought the MEV to a hover twenty meters in front of the Stargate as the subspace path was established with the 'kawoosh' of the unstable vortex. Sam brought out her GDO and entered her iris code, the GDO flashed green. She now talked into a hand radio.

"SGC, this is Major Carter, come in," said Sam.

"Major, this is Hammond, sitrep," crackled the radio.

"The Ambassador and I were successful, we're hovering in the MEV just in front of the Stargate, I recommend you evacuate any personnel within the gate room," said Sam into the radio.

"Understood, we've also retracted the roof and stand ready to open the silo door, however, a concern has been raised over whether the MEV would be seen or detected once it left the mountain," said Hammond.

"Tell the General, that MEVs have cloaking devices, and I'll engage it just before we ascend out of the mountain," said Harry. Sam nodded and relayed the message.

"Understood," said Hammond, "the gate room is clear, you have a go. See you soon."

Harry focused and the engine nacelles retracted into the hull and the MEV trusted forward and into the event horizon. He briefly experienced the disembodied feeling of Stargate travel and regained awareness just in time to halt the forward momentum of the ship before it crashed into the large windowpane of the control room. It was quite funny to see the gawping faces of the technicians staring at them. General Hammond had started for a moment as the MEV surged through the event horizon but composed himself in moments, while Daniel just stared wide eyed.

Harry waved nonchalantly at the control room and engaged the cloaking field. The MEV shimmered briefly and disappeared from view…the only thing betraying its location was the sound of its engines resonating through the cramped gate room. He 'ordered' the MEV to rise in a vertical ascent, up beyond where the 'roof' of the gate room normally was and into the dimly lit silo that used to house Ballistic Missiles for testing. Occasional scaffolding passed every few meters as they ascended but there was more than enough clearance for the craft. Harry paused below the massive solid reinforced concrete door that made up the lid of the silo.

"General, we're below the silo doors now," reported Sam into her radio.

"Understood, silo door is opening…now," said Hammond's voice. The was a whine of machinery and gears and the door parted to open up into the cool night air with the half-moon bathing the area with its soft light and the stars twinkling down. When the door was fully open Harry moved the MEV further until they had totally cleared the mountain.

"We're clear," reported Sam and immediately the silo door closed again. This was done because despite the end of the Cold War, the Intelligence business was still alive and kicking, and more than a few Russian and Chinese Intel gathering spy satellites still hovered the skies looking down on American defense sites…such as NORAD…for unusual activity. The silo doors briefly opening and closing could be explained away as mere maintenance on the mechanisms.

Harry extended the nacelles and the invisible MEV shot upward into the sky on an escape trajectory. Not twenty seconds later they emerged into space. Harry's mind brought up a forward holographic scanner display of the Solar System.

"Ok," mumbled Harry examining the sensor feed. "The 301 is here," he pointed to a relatively slow moving dot, blinking just beyond Saturn's orbital path.

"What's their speed?" asked Sam, squinting at the hologram that nearly dominated the entire forward view.

"It seems the failed missile burn slowed them down a little bit," reported Harry, scrutinizing the scrolling Alteran text. "They're doing four hundred and ten kilometers per second."

"What's the maximum sublight speed of this ship?"

"About fifteen thousand kilometers per second, so don't worry, we'll reach them in time," said Harry with a smile. "I've plotted an intercept course," the intended course appeared on the hologram, "I don't want to strain the engines too much…so at ten thousand kilometers per second we should reach them in…five hours, thirty nine minutes and two seconds."

The hologram screen disappeared and Harry turned the MEV on the intended course and switched it to autopilot, allowing him to remove his hands from the interface console.

Now there was nothing to do but wait. A few minutes of complete silence reigned with only the harmonic hum of the engines in the background noise. Sam broke it first with a question that had been on her mind since she learned how the MEV was operated.

"Would it be possible for me to pilot this ship?"

"I don't know," said Harry honestly, he didn't know if Sam had an Alteran as a distant ancestor or if she was evolved enough as a human/Terran to exhibit the unique physiology required. "But there is an easy way to find out." He placed his hands back on the interface pads, just in case Sam did have the ability to use Alteran technology and unknowingly ordered the ship to do a lot of crazy and weird things with her uncontrolled thoughts.

"How?" she asked curious.

"Place your hands like mine on the interface panel," he instructed. She bit her lip and hesitantly rested her hands on the panel…it remained dark and unpowered. "Sorry Major," said Harry sincerely. Sam looked extremely let down and nearly insulted. Harry had an inkling of why the latter was the case.

"Don't be offended Major, it's not a measure of mental capacity as to whether it will work or not," explained Harry.

"Then what is required?" she asked, looking slightly mollified.

"Remember, that this is a ship built by the Ancients, and it stands to reason that they would want certain dangerous or advanced technologies only to be operable by their own kind," said Harry seriously.

"What!" said Sam in astonishment, nearly jumping out of her seat. "You mean, you're a…you're…"

"Major! Sam!" snapped Harry to get her back to reality. She settled back into her seat with a slightly awed expression and looked more coherent. "No, despite what I just said, I am not a true Ancient."

"Why?" said Sam, her mind was still racing and she seemed stuck for the moment in single word questions.

"The true Ancients…those that lived millions of years ago and moved on from this Galaxy when they had outgrown it…eventually, for some reason I don't know yet, were forced to return to the Milky Way and for some reason decided to scatter around Earth and other parts of their ancient homes in this Galaxy. Now, this was about ten thousand years ago. The Ancients lived among humans for a time and once enough civilization had entered the psyche of humanity…the Ancients walked more openly and eventually, nearly inevitably…some of them fell in love…can you see where this is going?"

"There are unknowing descendants of Ancients living on Earth, and you're one of them," concluded Sam. "Another reason you were abducted I assume?"

"Indeed," nodded Harry with a grin. "But even if you couldn't trace an Ancient among your distant ancestors, it's possible that you could…as a Terran…have evolved the ability to interface with the MEV."

"And just how is that possible?" said Sam shrewdly. "The statistical chances of it are..."

"That's simple…you see…the humanity you know and are part of…is the second evolution of this form, the Ancients being the first…"

"Ok," said Sam holding her hands up in mock surrender. "Don't say anything else, explain fully when Daniel is here to listen…he'll love to hear it as well."

"He's welcome to listen, he merely need ask," said Harry with a shrug.

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The MEV decloaked.

Through the forward viewport Harry could see the 301 rapidly growing bigger. Soon enough the MEV came to a relative stop to the starboard side of the glider. Harry ordered the ship to open a radio frequency to the glider.

"You can speak."

"Digger 1, this is Digger 2, please respond," said Sam. Harry brought up a scan of the 301 and frowned at the results.

"It looks like Teal'C has entered a Kel-No-Reem meditative state to conserve oxygen and the Colonel is unconscious and seems to be in the early stages of carbon dioxide poisoning," reported Harry. Sam got out of the co-pilots seat and headed to the transporter module. A few moments later the shimmering whine of the transporter was heard and Harry saw the motionless forms of Teal'C and Jack disappear from the cockpit of the 301.

There was a flash of light. Teal'C and Jack appeared within the MEV, and fell awkwardly to the small floorspace between the rear seats. It was enough to jar Teal'C awake and the big Jaffa heaved great gulps of fresh air.

"Major Carter, Ambassador Harry," greeted Teal'C when he was able to. "Your arrival is timely. Little oxygen remained." Jack was also jarred awake by the transport and looked totally out of it for a moment as he struggled to regain his equilibrium.

"Hey Carter, nice ship," said Jack, "bit cramped."

"Well, it's either that or suffocate, Colonel," said Harry sarcastically, walking into the rear compartment. "So what do you both say to going home?"

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_A/N: In terms of the relative speeds and distances involved with this chapter, let's just say I made a WAG(wild ass guess) with everything. I hope you find my name for the cool Puddle Jumpers seen in SGA and SG1 somewhat palatable, I wanted a unique name for them in this story and in the future I will reveal what Ancients called the Puddle Jumpers. Harry drops a few bombshells on the Ancients to the team. I can see Daniel salivating with eagerness to pick Harry's brain in the future. I'm sorry for those who wanted to see 'Window of Opportunity – Harry style' but I needed to move the story along. As I'm planning this thing to be an epic! _


	13. Chapter 13

_**Chapter Thirteen – Curse**_

When Harry had finally decided to come back to Earth, after seeing the wonders and terrors of the greater Galaxy, he hardly imagined he would find himself standing in the office of the 'most powerful man on the planet' also called the Oval office, in addition it was the first time he had ever worn a finely tailored silver gray Armani suit with all the trimmings; though it was rather constricting compared to what he usually wore.

Harry cast a curious cursory glance around the office of the President of the United States. The walls painted in warm colors, which the curtains matched. The elegant mahogany furniture pristinely placed around the room, which all rested on a large blue carpet into which the seal of the United States was etched. Harry stood in a solid posture just in front of the seal with his hands behind his back. Two soft couches facing each other and a coffee table between them completed the layout of the room.

Along the walls, various pictures in gilded frames were hung strategically, some containing artwork and one containing a portrait of Benjamin Franklin, and right behind the large desk of the President himself, hung the American flag and a solid blue flag showing the seal as well.

Harry fiddled with a leather folder that was in his hands as he waited for the President. He kept an eye on the famous 'hidden' door that led to the offices of the Presidential secretary and assistant. He had an inkling that was where the leader of the free world would eventually emerge.

His attention was drawn however to the portrait of Benjamin Franklin; the famous man was represented sitting in a cushy armchair within an elegant looking study and looking directly at the viewer. Harry walked over to the painting and brushed a hand along the frame of the portrait. At that point the 'hidden' door opened suddenly and Harry turned to face the man entering.

Harry immediately felt the charismatic and commanding presence of William Jefferson Clinton, though it had little effect on him. The President with elegantly presented gray hair entered his own office with a charming smile on his face, which didn't falter one moment as he caught sight of Harry.

"Ah, Mr Ambassador," said the President with an Arkansas lilt in his pronunciation. "It's good to finally meet you."

"It's an honor to meet you as well, Mr President," said Harry and they shook hands.

"Tell me, you wish something to drink?" said the President.

"Some water would be acceptable, thank you, Mr President," said Harry. The President headed over to a drinks decanter on the coffee table and poured water for both of them.

"Please, have a seat," gestured the President to the two couches. "Now," he said as both he and Harry sat across from each other, "the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs tells me you have something I should see."

"Yes, Sir," said Harry and opened the leather folder, handing the President a document. "This is an Abstract of a proposal which I believe, would go a long way toward securing Earth's and humanity's future."

The President took a drink of his water and started to read the document. Harry had to admit that the man was a master of his own emotions…the President's face had not shifted one bit as he read the proposal that would have others either laughing in incredulity or scowling in anger. Harry recalled the reactions of General Hammond and General Franks (the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs); the former who had shaken his head in astonishment while the latter looked impressed at the sheer audacity of it. The President finished reading and handed the paper back to Harry and only frowned as if in apparent deep thought.

"Why the Swiss?" asked the President as a response.

"Not to detract from those under Air Force payroll, Mr President, but the best Physicists in the world are all stationed around the CERN particle accelerator, which we need unlimited access to if Earth is to ever hope to develop a truly effective and unique weapon to combat the Goa'uld," explained Harry.

"And the Vatican?"

"Inevitably," sighed Harry, "the Stargate and the reality of our place in the Galaxy will have to come out, Mr President. The true history of our civilization will require a massive paradigm shift in the thinking of every person on the planet. Ninety five percent of the planet believes in some form of religion…that majority of which is Christian. If the Vatican can get on board they can begin to subtly nudge religious thinking towards where it would accept the situation we find ourselves in."

"Wise, but what about the Muslim world?"

"As to that, I have no real idea Mr President, perhaps if we add the Saudis to the disclosure list they can begin a similar process with the Muslim Clerics," said Harry with a shrug. The President only nodded and remained in deep thought. "What do you think, Mr President?"

"An ambitious but noble plan, Mr Ambassador," commented the President. "It's quite admirable in its goals. However, you will find considerable obstacles in your path." Harry's eyes subtly narrowed at the President's words.

"Will you be one of those obstacles, Mr President?" asked Harry carefully.

"Me?" said the President with a disarming smile, which faded into neutrality. "No, I will not oppose this plan and with some further refinement I believe my Office could begin to implement it, but you realize that its scope will last well beyond my Presidency."

"And you think that your eventual successor might not agree with it and abandon it?"

"Not if it's made an official executive order, those last until it is rescinded by a majority cabinet and legislative vote," said the President. "As I was saying however, the primary obstacles to this plan will come from parties…that are, shall we say, less than honorable in their aims." Harry knew whom the President meant…the rogue NID and those in the government allied with them.

"If they try to stop this…by anything other than the means of democracy…" said Harry stoically.

"Then they will be traitors not only to this country, but to every human life on this planet," declared the President. Harry blinked in surprise at the President's words. "You think I can't read between the lines of your plan, Mr Ambassador?" asked the President with a lopsided grin.

"Not at all, Mr President," said Harry quickly. "I just didn't expect you to get it so quickly. You see, the one overriding reason advanced civilizations have in not sharing their knowledge with Earth, is our provincial attitude. Now I'm not advocating a one-world government…but more of a system like the European Union with regard to extra-planetary affairs."

"Indeed, but anyway, let's put aside politics for a while and tell me a bit about a very interesting report that crossed my desk from Dr Daniel Jackson."

"Ah," said Harry with a grin. "Yes, I bet that report was a very eye opening experience for you, Sir."

"You're telling me," chuckled the President. "Fascinating, absolutely amazing are but meager adjectives to describe it. I must admit, in all the reading I've done on the Stargate program, nothing has fascinated me more than the Gatebuilders."

"One of the more quirky names given to my ancestors," said Harry.

"But despite everything in the report there is one thing that puzzles me," said the President, "if there are as you say…descendants of the Ancients living among us here on Earth, shouldn't there have been some clue out there as to their existence. Some form of modern encounter or people exhibiting strange knowledge or…" the President trailed off and Harry saw his eyes widen slightly as he stared at the portrait of Benjamin Franklin. Harry chuckled slightly.

"You've just answered your own question, Mr President," said Harry with a grin. "You meet with them occasionally, and communicate remotely through that portrait."

"Well I'll be…" said the President. Any further conversation was cut off as the red phone on the President's desk began to ring; he shook himself back into composure in a second and stood to answer the phone. "Yes, George?" Harry sat up in interest, knowing that it was General Hammond on the other end. "I see…are you sure?…yes, we're just about finished…no, we can't risk it, George, we can't send an entire commando team into Egypt…keep it low key, understood?…good…I'll brief him myself in the interests of saving time and send him on to you…good…anytime…" The President put down the phone and turned to Harry. "Ambassador, there's been a development with old Egyptian artifacts from the Stuart Expedition in 1931, are you familiar with it?"

"Only what Dr Jackson told me before he went to the funeral of his old mentor," replied Harry in thought, "that it was an American funded dig that unearthed what was 'rumored' to be cursed artifacts and that during transit to America the ship carrying them sunk in mysterious circumstances. Only recently has submersion technology evolved to the point where the wreck could be examined and the artifacts were retrieved and sent to Chicago for analysis."

"Well, among those artifacts were two canopic jars, called the Isis and Osiris Jars," said the President.

Harry's eyes widened as he slowly stood his mind racing. "And where are those jars now?"

"The Isis Jar is safely in the possession of the SGC, it was opened and a dead Goa'uld parasite was found within, apparently the seal on the jar had broken during the sinking…but the Osiris jar is nowhere to be found."

"Then there is a Goa'uld on the loose, and a particularly dangerous one at that," said Harry grimly.

"Why do you say that, Mr Ambassador?"

"While Osiris is physically just like any other Goa'uld we know, his particular talents lie in politics, manipulation and subtlety," explained Harry.

"Something which, as far as I know, is not a trait many Goa'uld have," said the President, "they are all ego and brawn, and you can roughly predict their actions based on that."

"Osiris is anything but predictable, he is almost as skilled as the Tok'ra in misdirection and subtlety, a fact which I know that the Tok'ra grudgingly admire about him," said Harry.

"General Hammond is requesting that you return to the SGC and fly a small undercover team to Egypt with that wonderful ship of yours," explained the President. "They have identified the most likely host of Osiris, one Dr Steven Jordan."

"I will try my best to save the host, Mr President," said Harry, bowing his head slightly.

"Please do," said the President and they shook hands in goodbye.

"It was an honor to meet you, Mr President," said Harry.

"And you, Mr Ambassador." Harry stepped back and the next moment simply vanished.

"My goodness!" said the deep voice of the portrait of Benjamin Franklin looking shocked; "he simply went through the anti-apparition wards like they weren't even there."

"I take it now, you'll be more inclined to believe him in his assertion of wizardry's origins?" said the President dryly.

"Perhaps," allowed Benjamin Franklin, with a frown. "But I'll need to see more hard proof than merely his word. And even then, I don't believe the magical world is ready to know, I think they are even less suited than the non-magical to hear the truth. "

"Everybody OK back there?" called Harry into the rear compartment of the MEV.

"Fine," said the voice of Dr Frasier, as she and Sam were busy preparing tranquilizer darts which contained a newly discovered substance found within the stasis jar of Isis; found to be extremely potent in chemically sedating a Goa'uld, which was quite rare, as Goa'uld were quite hardy against all known forms of chemical warfare.

Sitting in the co-pilots chair next to Harry looking as if he was riding a roller coaster for the first time in Disneyland was Daniel, whose eyes kept drinking in the interior of the Alteran vessel. The MEV was cloaked and taking a high altitude course toward Egypt, at this height the curvature of the Earth was readily visible and the blue and white marble of the planet glinted against the sun.

In keeping with the covert nature of their mission they were all dressed, as you would expect tourists to in a very hot desert climate; loose cargo pants, shirts, and hats all in white, brown or khaki. Harry however, since they were going to confront a Goa'uld, had insisted on wearing his chromesuit. To disguise himself he wore an illusion of clothing, which mirrored that of his teammates.

Having been told of the requirements to fly the MEV, and after asking Harry's permission, Daniel had placed his hands on the interface console…and it turned out that he didn't have the required physiology either.

"We're damn lucky you haven't taken this thing back to Seaworld yet," commented Daniel, studying the small labels of Alteran script dotting the control panel in front of them.

"I figured it could come in handy," said Harry with a shrug, "it's no use just letting it sit pretty in the hangar."

"Dr Lee and the rest of the science team would disagree with you," said Daniel with a grin.

"All they want to do is study it," said Harry with a frown, "and even if I allowed it, the knowledge that was used to construct this ship is so far over their heads they could study it for a lifetime and barely scratch the surface. With a single shot of the MEV's weapon system I could take out a Goa'uld mothership as casually as I would swat a fly."

"Are you serious?" said Daniel with wide eyes.

"This ship was built by a race that was in space for well over a few million years," said Harry stridently. "What is that compared to the paltry nine thousand years since the first Ha'tak appeared amongst the stars?"

"Insignificant," said Daniel shaking his head in awe. "

The MEV called for Harry's attention by lighting up the heads-up display(HUD). Harry read the flowing Alteran text for a few moments.

"Okay everyone, I'm starting our descent, we should reach the Stuart dig site in ten minutes," called Harry, and placed his hands on the interface pads. The MEV started a smooth dive and due to the fact that there was nearly no cloud in the sky at this time of the afternoon, they could see the contoured lines of the desert sand becoming bigger and bigger, appearing to slowly come at them.

When Harry finished his descent they were skimming two hundred feet above the sand dunes that raced past them as quickly as they could blink. The HUD lit up again and it showed a graphic of a scan done of their destination. The graphic didn't stay long enough for Daniel to interpret but the fact that Harry's mouth compressed into a grim line after seeing it did not bode well.

Sam and Janet had come forward to see the final approach and landing. The MEV slowed dramatically as they all saw the clear sight of the excavation, which had partly uncovered sections of a large temple and which according to records, also had catacombs beneath. The Egyptians spent a lot of money to keep the desert from consuming the temple again, it made for pretty pictures from outside, but it was structurally unsafe for tourists to enter in addition to being a bit too far south along the Nile river than most casual visitors were willing to travel.

Harry brought the MEV in to land about five hundred meters away from the temple behind a dune that would be just big enough to hide the profile of the ship from anyone already inside the temple.

"All right," said Harry, turning in his seat to face everyone, "I did a scan of the area…I found a small tourist group about a kilometer away, traveling in a camel caravan, they're elevated enough on the dunes so that they can see the temple, so we have to be as inconspicuous as possible. However, I detected two life signs in the structure, one is our Goa'uld."

"Who is the other?" asked Janet.

"Besides being a human, I have no idea, the sensors aren't configured to be that detailed," replied Harry. "I can tell that the fellow in there has no idea a Goa'uld is with him, since his or her life sign was moving around independently of the Goa'uld."

"All right, let's do this," declared Sam. Harry grabbed a tranq gun and led the impromptu group out of the MEV. To the outside observer, they just seemed to appear out of nowhere. Harry willed the ramp to close behind them as Daniel was the last one out.

"Umm…just out of curiosity, how are we going to find it and get back in again?" asked Daniel.

"I'm retaining a mental connection with the ship," answered Harry shortly and gestured for Sam to lead the way. Hiking over the dunes was deceptively tough and within just under ten minutes they were approaching the temple proper and walked through the large gaping maw that was the entrance. They were now warily walking down a long downward sloping corridor of stone that still had ancient torch brackets visible in the walls, which was lit and provided the eerie flickering yellow light of flame to the team.

The corridor eventually entered into a vast area that must have been once used as a reception area or lobby of sorts for temple worshippers. Ancient Egyptian dynasty style columns towered above them and fading hieroglyphs adorned the walls and the wind of the desert was howling in their ears. Their tranq guns sweeping the large room they saw nothing at first, but as their eyes accounted for the low light level relative to the corridor they saw a prone figure lying on the ground not far from the north wall of the room.

Daniel and Janet raced forward to the body, Sam initially hung back but as she was needed to sense whether it was the Goa'uld she eventually followed closely behind. Harry kept his eyes up and scanning, shifting his vision into the infrared spectrum.

"It's Steven!" said Daniel, as he examined the body. Sam placed a hand on the prone man.

"I'm not sensing a Goa'uld," said Sam as Janet was checking the injured archeologist, who moaned as he regained painful consciousness.

"He bleeding internally," declared Janet.

"Steven, it's me," said Daniel to his old friend and colleague.

"Daniel?"

"What happened?" asked Daniel urgently.

Dr Steven Jordan sighed. "I took the amulet. It's over ten thousand years old. You – were right all along. I'm sorry. AHHH!" the man cried in pain.

"Just take it easy, OK. I need to you to hold still," said Janet as she was examining his wounds as best as she could.

"It's OK," reassured Daniel to his colleague. "She's a friend. What about the jar?"

"Huh?" asked Dr Jordan, the pain was beginning to fog his mind.

"The Osiris jar. Did you open it?"

"No."

"Then why did you come here?" asked Daniel curiously.

"I figured out the amulet was a key…to a hidden chamber. I wanted to make the discovery," said Jordan with a sigh.

"Daniel, we _have_ to get him out of here," said Janet finally finishing her examination.

"Steven, who did this to you?"

"I DID!"

Harry did not know how Osiris had managed it, but despite his vision piercing the shadows, the Goa'uld had managed to sneak up on them unnoticed. (They would later find that there had been a secret doorway near where Osiris had dumped Dr Jordan) And what was even more surprising was the host of Osiris…a beautiful woman with a petite figure and auburn hair dressed in a khaki dress and diaphanous cloak with the hood covering her curly hair.

"Sarah?" said Daniel in astonishment. The moment's delay was all the Goa'uld needed. Osiris sent a concussive shock wave from the Ribbon device on her hand that lifted Sam and Janet off their feet and slammed them painfully into the hard stonewall some six feet above the floor, gravity took over and slammed them hard to ground and unconsciousness followed. Harry and Daniel shot their tranquilizer darts at Osiris but she merely sent another much smaller wave, which harmlessly deflected the darts. She followed it up with another massive wave that was targeted against Harry and Daniel.

Daniel was similarly picked up and slammed against the wall and fell…but the wave passed over Harry ineffectually…his body shimmering with an electric green azure shield as the concussive wave passed…it did have one effect though…the tranq gun was pulled from his hands (as it was not affected by Harry's personal shield which also had inertial dampening properties).

"What?" exclaimed Osiris in surprise…and sent another concussive wave…again to no effect.

"You might as well take that thing off, Osiris, for all the good it will do you," said Harry with a nasty grin.

"Who are you?" she demanded, her deep Goa'uld resonating in the room. Harry started to slowly walk toward her, his hands behind his back.

"Me?" asked Harry rhetorically. "To you, I am Tyr."

"Do not come any closer!" she warned and raised her Ribbon device toward the prone forms of the others. "Another blast will surely kill them." Harry stopped in response to the threat. "You will answer my questions or they die!"

"What do you want to know?" snorted Harry, humoring the Goa'uld, so he could distract her long enough to attempt his plan. "I'm guessing that it's been a while for you and you want to know the status quo in the Galaxy?"

"Where is the Stargate?" demanded Osiris.

"Nowhere you can get to," said Harry with a smirk.

"Insolence," snarled Osiris. "Where is my brother Setesh?"

"Dead, you pathetic snake," sighed Harry, "and Ra, Hathor, Sokar, and Anuksunamun, I can only take credit for the latter, while my Tau'ri brethren are responsible for the former."

"Then you have done me a great favor, I will easily rise to power without them in the picture," smirked Osiris.

"I think not," said Harry casually and vanished into thin air. Osiris blinked in astonishment and cursed aloud in Goa'uld, she moved the hand encased in her Ribbon device to do a sweep of the room for the Tau'ri who dared to defy her.

"Show yourself!"

"Boo!" That was all Osiris heard from behind before the wind was knocked out of her lungs and she was flung off her feet and similarly smashed against the wall as she had done to the other humans. But being a Goa'uld she picked herself up after landing and her eyes shone in anger as they locked on the calm form of Harry, now standing in the middle of the room. "I'm sorry, I just had to pay you back the courtesy of knowing what it's like to be smashed against a wall."

Osiris snarled in anger and charged towards Harry and threw a strike with the blade of her hand right at his neck. Harry knew with the strength a Goa'uld endowed in its host it would have easily snapped the neck of normal person…but he was hardly normal. With superior reflexes he dodged the strike, and deflected the offending arm giving it twice the speed and power Osiris had already given it. This threw her off balance for a moment and allowed Harry to retaliate and strike Osiris twice, one in the ribs and the other a back fist to the face, which added with a leg sweep, threw Osiris to the hard stone floor painfully.

Harry backed up to the center of the room, settling into a perfectly balanced fighting stance. While the Alterans were never big on martial arts in the latter stages of their civilization's existence, that was not true in the early stages.

Osiris snarled and threw her legs forward, using the momentum to right herself in an instant and she charged again, not accepting how this mere human could best her. The next round of fighting was more prolonged though…strikes flowed into one another, kicks were blocked, deflected, and yet Osiris had yet to land even a finger on Harry.

It was just as Harry sent Osiris back to kissing the floor that the sound of two compressed gas tranquilizer guns went off and two darts pegged themselves into the downed Goa'uld's back.

Harry looked up to see that Sam and Janet had recovered and used the opportunity he had given them. Osiris was much slower in getting up and strained visibly to stand as the sedative started to take effect.

"Mark my words…one day I will make the rivers of this world run red with blood…" those were her last words and she fell face forward to the floor again, this time not getting up.

"Are you Ok?" said Janet, looking at Harry worriedly.

"I'm fine," reassured Harry.

"That was amazing," said Sam. "You actually went toe to toe with a Goa'uld in unarmed combat."

"Yes," said Harry, "I take it you've been in a similar situation."

"No, but Colonel O'Neill tried that with Ra, but the Goa'uld just gave him a single backfist hit that had him knocked out." Sam pulled out solid steel wrist manacles and after pulling off the Ribbon device cuffed and bound Osiris. "By the way, why did you stay in the middle of the room when you fought? You could have ended the fight faster…"

"Because there are a set of transporter rings there, it was what Osiris was actually trying to get to when she saw I was impervious to her Ribbon device," said Harry, brushing away the dust on the floor, showing the distinct curved indentation of the Ring platform to Sam.

"Where does it lead?" said Janet, now tending to Daniel.

"Let's find out, Major, the Ribbon device please," requested Harry. Sam handed the device to Harry after which he promptly threaded his left hand into it and pushed his fingers into the golden metallic finger holds. He flexed his hand and the emitter of the device lit up briefly, before he turned it around and pressed an activation button on the cuff of the device. There was a loud whooshing sound of energy as four rings shot out of the ground, one after the other, surrounding Harry and then in a another whoosh of bright white energy that was contained within the rings, he vanished and the rings disappeared into the floor.

A few minutes passed in which Daniel had regained consciousness and was sitting next to Dr Jordan, while Sam attended to them both with her Goa'uld Healing device; something she had become somewhat proficient with. Whilst Dr Jordan would still need some minor surgery his life no longer in danger. Daniel, after getting his old friend's verbal agreement to sign the non-disclosure forms, began the standard introductory speech on the Stargate and the Goa'uld.

The rings activated again and when they disappeared left a grinning Harry behind.

"Where did it lead?" asked Sam.

"To an old model Goa'uld cargo ship hidden beneath a dampening field, obviously Osiris's intended means of escape," explained Harry.

"That's excellent," gushed Sam. "The boys at Area 51 are gonna love this."

"However," said Harry holding a stalling hand, "I am needed to fly the MEV, and since you are the only other pilot here, it will be up to you to fly the ship there."

"I've never flown one before," said Sam wearily.

"I will program the ship's information systems to display Standard English and a quick tutorial on some maneuvering aspects you are not familiar with," explained Harry easily. "You can take Daniel and Dr Jordan with you, whilst Dr Frasier and I take Osiris back to the SGC."

"Are you going to try and remove Osiris from Sarah?" asked Daniel worriedly.

"Yes, but do not concern yourself," reassured Harry, "I'll be using an Asgard transporter with a special program designed to separate symbiote from host. Sarah Gardener and Osiris will be very much alive, but separated."

"And we finally can get a chance to study a living Goa'uld symbiote," said Janet with a grin.

**Three weeks later…**

Harry stood within the observation lounge of a brand new _O'Neill_-class Asgard battlecruiser, looking out of the force shielded 'window' into the endless starfield of space. His surroundings showed as distorted reflections on his chromesuit that rippled and moved as it did. This specific ship he was on was Thor's new flagship, the _Samantha Carter_, commissioned barely a week ago, and it had finished its trials by doing the standard run from the Ida Galaxy to the Milky Way. Knowing this, Harry had requested the services of the ship for a special mission.

A pillar of light descended from the ceiling and landed next to Harry and coalesced into the thin-limbed figure of Thor.

"The construction drones are charging and will launch in ten minutes," reported Thor.

"Thank you, my friend," said Harry with a troubled frown.

"Is there a problem?" said Thor, quirking his big head to one side as his large black eyes stared at Harry.

"Well, I don't know how up to date your intelligence reports are concerning Apophis, but this Galaxy is now facing a serious problem," said Harry with a sigh.

"The Asgard know he controls the vast Army of Sokar, is that to what you are referring?"

"Honestly, I would've been happier if that was only the case," said Harry with an angry sneer. "An hour ago I received an update on my encrypted subspace channel via Earth from SG1 and the Tok'ra Selmak/Jacob Carter. They had embarked on a mission to get Apophis and Heru'ur to fight each other…as the two Goa'uld were in discussions on sealing a deal to become allies against the System Lord Collective."

"Such a battle would weaken both and return the balance of power to the System Lords," commented Thor.

"Yes, and that is what the Tok'ra and Earth had in mind to do," said Harry. "Apophis and Heru'ur were meeting in the Tobin System, you know of it?"

"Vaguely," said Thor, his large eyelids frowning in thought, "there is a large minefield in that system which will attack any vessel emitting any significant weapons discharge."

"Making perfect neutral territory for a meeting, so the Tok'ra and SG1 came up with a way to sabotage the meeting by covertly reprogramming a single mine to lock on to a specific frequency that another Tok'ra operative on board Apophis' flagship would transmit at the correct time to make sure that Apophis believed that Heru'ur was attacking him."

"And they were successful?"

"Yes and no," answered Harry blearily. Thor blinked. "The mine was reprogrammed and it detonated at the proper time against Apophis' ship. But we keep underestimating what that slimy snake is capable of," he complained in frustration, "Apophis had brought an entire cloaked fleet of Ha'taks with him."

"That is…troubling," said Thor, turning to look out the window. "That Apophis has the ability to cloak an entire mothership is dire news…Goa'uld technology is advancing quite rapidly lately."

"Tell me about it…first their FTL methods and now cloaking technology, where are they getting it?" asked Harry rhetorically flinging his hands in the air and starting to pace. "Anyway, you can imagine what happened next…Apophis gives Heru'ur an ultimatum to yield completely and enter into his service. And Heru'ur is too proud for that…so he refuses…the resulting battle was very short. The only bright side to this is that Apophis's fleet took a pounding from the minefield, so they'll be stuck in dry docks for a while, making repairs. But Apophis will easily absorb Heru'ur's forces into his own, so those losses more than makes up for what he gained."

Silence descended between the two for a few moments.

"I will see what ships can be spared to increase security for our holdings in this Galaxy," said Thor eventually. "Our strategists predict the Replicators will be nearing total defeat within eighteen standard months."

Harry nodded in understanding. "Thank you."

"The drones are ready and are launching," reported Thor. The view out of the observation lounge showed the gray, gangly automated construction units with multiple appendages shoot out of one of the lower cargo bays. The ship yawed slightly to show the twenty drones' destination as they arced through space toward the dark side of a very familiar moon.

**Colorado Springs, Earth…**

A few weeks later found Harry dressed in the casual attire of jeans, loose baggy shirt and sneakers standing just in front of the white picket fence of a large house in a sleepy looking suburb of Colorado Springs. Attired in similarly casual clothes standing next to him and looking over the neatly manicured lawn was Jack.

"It's not what I expected…" commented Harry idly.

"Well what did you expect the General's house to look like?" said Jack drolly.

"I don't know, something more stately, large, imposing, a house to match the character of the man…but in retrospect that's a stupid assumption, since he mostly looks after his granddaughters here," said Harry.

"General Hammond is a big teddy bear with his grandkids," said Jack with a smile. "He's made it as far as he has today by keeping Air Force business out of his personal life."

"Wise," was all Harry said. "So do you think we can convince him to come back?"

"We have to," said Jack simply. "That trumped up General Bauer sitting in his chair is going to be the end of the SGC, not to mention the planet."

"Lead the way," gestured Harry. Jack opened the gate and headed into the garden, Harry following right behind. Curiously, Jack ignored the front door and head around the house, down a small alley between the house and the fence, which opened up into a huge lush green backyard that bordered the small river that flowed through this neighborhood. The sound of children playing met their ears and finally two small girls roughly seven and eight years old respectively came into view their ponytailed blonde hair swirling in every direction as they played with a soccer ball.

The two girls caught sight of Jack and they squealed in excitement, "Hello, Uncle Jack!" and charged at the aging Colonel, who immediately started to chant something in what Harry recognized as Spanish. Both girls gave Jack bear hugs and laughed in delight as he started to tease them. It was obvious that Jack was a natural with kids, despite that he had lost his own son to a handgun accident.

Harry felt his heart swell as he stared at the giggling girls…as he contemplated the future…

Jack stood after telling the two girls that he had business with their grandfather and let them resume play with the soccer ball. Jack headed towards the backdoor of the house and before either of them could even reach to open it, the door opened and Harry was introduced to the strange sight of General Hammond in casual clothes…it was quite surreal.

"Jack, Harry!" said Hammond with a big smile. "Good to see you, come on in!"

"General," chorused Harry and Jack. "See you're keeping busy," said Jack as they walked into the brightly lit kitchen and sat down around the table that was used to serve meals.

"Yeah, I guess retirement agrees with me," said Hammond with a smile, "so what brings you two here?"

"Well," said Harry, taking up the gauntlet, "Jack's on a little enforced vacation courtesy of _General_ Bauer." Harry said the rank as if it was something unpleasant on his tongue. Harry honestly couldn't believe that someone like Bauer could rise to a position like General…for crying out loud, the man got groused when reports weren't typed in 'bullet point' but the death of someone under his command didn't rate even a sappy condolence.

"Not everyone is going to be as patient with you as I was, Jack," said Hammond with an amused look at the Colonel.

"And I'm here because one of main reasons I returned to Earth and joined Stargate Command was…to put it bluntly, because of you General," stated Harry stoically.

"Me?" said Hammond raising an eyebrow, to invite elaboration.

"I did not just come to Earth on a whim, General," said Harry, "I conducted a thorough observation and investigation of the SGC personnel in the field and the operating philosophy with which the Stargate was used. With regards to you, General, I concluded that you were a man of integrity, one which I could imagine offering my expertise and service. General Bauer, with all due to respect to the man, is not such a person."

Hammond remained silent for a while, staring at Harry. "I take it then, you're both here to get me back into the mountain."

"I've never met anyone who liked doing what they do, more than you. You were good at it. Great. You'll never convince us that you just got fed up," said Jack seriously.

"I'm sorry," said Hammond, shaking his head, "it's out of my hands, gentlemen."

"What's that mean?" asked Jack intently.

"I can't discuss it," said Hammond gravely. Harry frowned at the General's tone; he was not about to use telepathy on the General, but he got a clear sense of dread and fear in the man's emotions.

"General?" asked Harry pointedly.

"You don't understand," said Hammond, a resigned look on his face.

"Then enlighten us," said Jack intently. Hammond looked from Jack's determined face to Harry's stoic one and sighed.

"Two weeks ago," said the General, "I was contacted by a representative of the NID. He suggested I become more aggressive in my policies."

"They have no jurisdiction over you," argued Jack.

"They wanted me to help them gain access to off world technology, which they're unable to since we shut down their little side operation." Harry recalled his role in that undercover operation, he had been in control of the Asgard ship, which had raided the off world NID base. Harry was rather thankful to Jack when he managed to convince the NID personnel to leave through the Stargate and face Earth's legal system, before his transportation beams finished taking the stolen technology. The Asgard policy against the captured NID members would have been swift and merciless (since some of the stolen technology's absence had caused the deaths of sentients' under Asgard protection) and Harry would have been the one to carry that out.

"I take it you told them to shove it," said Harry with a raised eyebrow.

"Of course," said Hammond with a frown, but his face turned grave, "then he told me that if I didn't cooperate that there would be consequences. The next day, two men in plain clothes in a black unmarked car picked up my granddaughters from school."

"I don't believe it," said Jack shortly looking angry. Harry felt hot anger lick his insides at the mere thought of it. That the NID would…to those two adorable and innocent children outside…

"They took them for a little ride and brought them home. The girls were fine…but I got the message," said Hammond with narrowed eyes. "We're talking about an organization as powerful as the CIA. These people are above the law. I can't protect my family twenty four hours a day…I had no choice."

"Of course not," said Jack instantly.

"They might be above the law, General," said Harry with glint in his eyes, "but they are not as untouchable as they believe."

"Please, don't into trouble over this," said Hammond. Harry and Jack looked at each other and grinned.

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The process of getting into a Federal Prison as a visitor would normally involve a reasonable amount of red tape and background check verification. The process when going to see a maximum security prisoner convicted of high treason was twice as arduous…and for Harry, who didn't really exist in the identity databases of Earth had to fall back on presenting his diplomatic credentials (which stated that he was diplomat from England) and fair bit of subtle telepathy on the prison guards to convince them that he had just cause to see the prisoner.

Jack on the other hand, had much less hassle.

After nearly two hours of effort, Harry and Jack walked into a large rotunda style prison cell, made for prisoners who needed to be interviewed or interrogated on a near constant basis. It allowed for the interviewer to sit comfortably at a desk and refer to files and documents and so forth.

There was only one occupant in the cell…former Colonel Harry Mayborne, clad in a bright colored prison jumpsuit. Mayborne was in his mid fifties with graying short hair and a swarthy face set with cunning blue eyes. The guard escorted Harry and Jack inside and after verifying that everything was ok, closed the magnetically sealed door to the rotunda cell behind them. Harry and Jack walked towards the bars that divided the room in two and Mayborne stood from his bed, his calculating eyes taking in their appearance.

"Well, well, well," said Mayborne sarcastically, "Jack O'Neill, Ambassador, what a surprise."

"Mayborne," said Jack stoically.

"So what brings you to my new abode? I don't get many visitors."

"I find that surprising," said Jack.

"It shouldn't be," countered Mayborne. "In my line of work people don't exactly stand by you through thick and thin. Most of my former associates are conveniently forgetting I ever existed."

"Your former associates are why we're here. They're causing trouble for a friend of ours."

"General Hammond," said Mayborne knowingly.

"What do you know?" asked Harry with a raised eyebrow.

"Why should I tell?" shrugged Mayborne with an unconcerned air.

"The Ambassador and I can go a long way to help you," said Jack stridently.

"I've been convicted of treason. What can either of you do?"

"Air Force One and I go way back," said Jack with a smirk, "and the Ambassador can easily arrange for transportation off world to a safe planet where the NID can't find you."

"Tempting offer," said Mayborne narrowing his eyes, "I suppose I'll have to trust you two."

"I wasn't going to say it," denied Jack.

"It's really very simple," said Mayborne with a sigh, visibly conceding, "when you shut down the off world operation you removed the NID's access to offworld technology. The NID believes that Hammond and the policies that govern the SGC are too soft."

"Is General Bauer part of the NID?" asked Harry.

"Truth is, I don't know," shrugged Mayborne, "I've been out of the loop for a while. However, it's most likely he's just a patsy…unwittingly maneuvered into position because he's got the right mentality."

"It all sounds so cloak and daggery," said Jack uncertainly.

"You're a special ops Colonel, Jack," said Mayborne condescendingly, "why do you always pretend to smell like roses?"

"Hey!" shouted Jack back. "I've never threatened a two star General by kidnapping his grandkids!"

"Don't pretend to be so naïve, either," said Mayborne with a wry expression.

"How do we get the NID to withdraw their threat?" asked Harry, getting the conversation back on track.

Mayborne chuckled, "Do you two really want to play in my sandbox?"

"What do we have to do?" asked Jack in turn, calming down.

"Quid pro quo," said Mayborne in a singsong voice.

"If I'm not mistaken, Mayborne," said Harry, his lips thinning, "that the penalty for treason in the United States is lethal injection. You help us with the NID and Jack and I, as a representative of the Asgard, will both go before the President and appeal to have your sentence reduced significantly."

"How significantly?" asked Mayborne.

"Minimum security, ten years jail time," said Jack with a grin, "and the option of offworld relocation if the NID decides to take you out for helping us."

Mayborne lowered his eyes and appeared in deep thought for a while before he looked up again and said simply, "Deal."

Mayborne, now out of his prison garb in and in casual clothes that made him look like Joe Normal, opened the front door of an apartment on the first floor of a rather ordinary housing development on the outskirts of Colorado Springs. Harry and Jack entered close on his heels, not trusting the man an inch.

They entered an apartment that was quite large, easily over a hundred square meters, but it was nearly devoid of furniture and a slight layer of dust covered the wood linoleum floors. The walls were painted white and lacked any adornment. The windows were curtained to prevent people from looking in and apparently give the illusion to the casual inspector that someone did indeed live here.

Mayborne headed to the kitchen area where there was a running refrigerator.

"Have you ever heard of IKEA?" asked Jack sarcastically, referring to the lack of furniture.

"You two should count yourself fortunate," stated Mayborne, opening the refrigerator, "no one, not even the NID, knows this place exists." He reached underneath a drawer within the fridge and pulled out a well concealed plastic bag that had been stuck there, inside of which was an old three and a half inch floppy disk. Jack eyed the contents of the fridge with amusement. Harry saw a six pack of beer and a bottle of mustard.

"I see you're on the old mustard and beer diet," said Jack with a smirk. Mayborne didn't look amused and helped himself to a bottle of beer and closed the fridge. The former Colonel now headed to the only furniture in the apartment, a desk, upon which was a computer running in idle mode. He tore open the bag and slotted the floppy inside the computer.

"Isn't that a bit old tech?" asked Harry with a raised eyebrow.

"Sometimes the simplest solution is the best one," said Mayborne, "this disk contains an encryption key, if you don't boot this computer with it, the hard drive is instantly fried." The computer whirred into active mode.

"What are you specifically looking for?" asked Jack.

"The NID is made up of independent cells. They communicate with each other through the Internet by logging on to forums located on floating servers that are heavily encrypted. If I can access the forums I can get the evidence we need to get the NID to back down," explained Mayborne and started typing.

Harry moved to stand behind Mayborne and looked over his shoulder to the screen. Where a username and password screen for an innocent looking website called was being displayed. Mayborne typed in the required fields and pressed enter, whereupon it immediately flashed 'Access Denied'.

"Damn," cussed Mayborne, "they've deactivated my password."

"Guess they revoked your club membership," said Jack sarcastically.

"I'll hack in through the backdoor," said Mayborne, looking determined now. When five minutes of unsuccessful hacking had occurred Jack headed over to the window to glance out at the street. Harry also saw the danger, as it was entirely possible that Mayborne's attempted hacking was getting back traced.

"It's taking too long," said Harry grimly.

"I'm going as fast as I can," snapped Mayborne in irritation.

"Perhaps I can be of help," stated Harry and raised his hand, in which a jewel device had appeared. He placed the device on top of the computer box and instructed the AI of the jewel device to break through the encryption. The effect was immediate.

The Lindorama screen vanished and was replaced with scrolling programming code that flashed fasted than could be discerned. Mayborne looked at the Asgard jewel device with an indecipherable expression as it worked.

"We've got company," announced Jack grimly. And Harry heard the sound of a powerful engine coming to a stop outside.

"How many?" asked Harry.

"Four, excluding the driver, armed with Uzis," reported Jack, drawing his own Glock 9mm pistol from its hidden holster.

"The device needs another thirty seconds to hack in," said Harry, who was keeping his hand on the device, mentally helping it break through the encryption.

"That's not enough time," said Jack, "is there another way out of here?"

"Yes," nodded Mayborne who stood and headed towards what looked like the bedroom.

"Jack, get out here, I can handle four easily," said Harry casually, keeping his hand on the jewel device. "You and Mayborne can take out the driver and commandeer us some transport." Jack hesitated for only a moment, looking to object, but thought better of it, the post mission report of the Osiris mission vivid in his mind.

"See you in a few minutes," said Jack casually, matching Harry's unconcerned tone, and followed Mayborne into the bedroom. Harry assumed there had to be some form of concealed doorway as he heard it slide open and shut and he sensed that his two partners had emerged onto a terraced walkway on the outskirts of the building.

Harry felt the encryption shatter fifteen seconds later and immediately instructed the AI to begin downloading. He had barely lifted his hand off the device and the front door of the apartment burst open to admit the four strong rogue NID assault party. They were dressed in black clothes and had soft looking Kevlar body armor. They toted the pistol sized version of the Uzi, which was easily concealed when needed.

Harry didn't know why they decided to shoot first, but later he would realize that they had come hoping to take out Mayborne (since it was his old password that was used).

Two Uzi's spat fire at Harry. The bullets shattered against his personal shield harmlessly.

Harry vaulted himself over the desk to make sure he was between them and the computer, it wouldn't do for the thing to shot full of holes before the evidence was downloaded. The four NID men now decided to open up on full automatic with their Uzi's against Harry, clearly hoping that they could overwhelm his shield with weight of fire.

They might as well have tried to spit against the wind.

The Uzi's mechanisms now clicked repeatedly…their magazines spent…the four NID men in desperation now tried to attack Harry physically.

Big mistake.

Harry lanced out with a kick to the stomach of the closest NID guy and sent him flying through the air to crash against the wall, the force denting it thoroughly, disturbed plaster raining from the ceiling. Both his palms crashed against the sternums of the next two NID men, they immediately slumped to the floor, unconscious.

Harry turned to look at the last remaining NID member and felt a stab of pity at the sheer fear in the man's face as he wearily backed away from Harry. The emotion was suppressed and the man joined his colleagues in the land of nod after a kick to the midsection. It was now time for damage control. He quickly went to each NID member and using telepathy, altered their recent memories…that they had arrived too late to intercept Mayborne and was knocked out by a gas trap the traitorous Colonel had left behind when they tried to access the computer. He also healed the injuries of the men and repaired the damage to the room with a quick transfiguration.

The jewel device prompted him that it was finished and he lifted it off the computer. Harry calmly walked to the front door and turned back to the computer. He pointed his finger toward it and a yellow beam of power lanced out and struck the computer…causing it to give off a moderate explosion that filled the room with smoke.

This made the smoke detectors in the apartment unhappy and not a moment later the fire alarm wailed through the building. Harry rushed down the hallway and out of the building toward the waiting black SUV which contained an antsy looking Mayborne and an unconcerned Jack.

"Have fun?" said Jack, gunning the car into gear and pulling off.

"Oh yeah," grinned Harry.

"Get what we need?"

Harry consulted the jewel device and gawped in astonishment at what the AI was telling him.

"It seems I was a bit too unspecific in my instructions to the jewel device," said Harry with an evil looking grin. "I asked it to download what I needed…and it interpreted that rather liberally."

"What do you mean?" asked Mayborne.

"Say hello to the entire NID database," said Harry gesturing to the jewel device.

"You're kidding," said Jack in surprise.

"Nope," said Harry, "I think it's safe to say that the NID will be backing off."


	14. Chapter 14

_**Chapter 14 - Exodus**_

SGC Briefing Room...

General Hammond, SG-1 minus Daniel, and the various heads of department who would be affected by the upcoming briefing took their seats around the table upon which on many occasions the fate of Earth was decided. This briefing would be nearly just as important.

Harry stood, his gleaming chromesuit rippling in the lighting coming from the roof. He thumbed a small remote control and the room was plunged into relative darkness, which was broken a few moments later when the light of a projector pierced the gloom. A top down map of the Milky Way Galaxy was displayed down to the last star, the sheer detail of it was enough to make the one or two astronomers in the room give whistles of appreciation.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, this briefing I am giving today is two fold in purpose," said Harry. "The first is to adress the problem I have noticed with regards to one of the most critical factors in any conflict, that this facility and Earth is lacking. And that is simply, Strategic Intelligence." This brought many raised eyebrows from the assembled group. "The second purpose is to outline a proposal to increase the Naquadah flow to Earth significantly." Harry looked around the the gloomily illuminated faces and saw a bit of confusion. "How are the two related, you ask?"

Harry thumbed another button on the remote and the picture of the Galaxy was suddenly colored in by dark red transparent blobs of various sizes and shapes encompassing multiple sectors and regions of the Galaxy. "This is the most up to date strategic picture of the Galaxy that the Asgard possesses. Each red area represents the holdings of the System Lord Collective." This brought forth rather alarmed muttering, and Harry understood why, as the Goa'uld easily had the vast majority of the Galaxy under their thumbs. Harry pressed the remote again and now a few tiny grey blobs were scattered about the Galaxy. "The grey blobs are what holdings the Asgard maintain, including Earth down here on the Orion arm of the Milky Way," a single star flashed red where Harry pointed. "The rest of the Galaxy, for the moment, is of no interest to the Goa'uld as they are quite close to reaching a point where further expanding their domain of influence would be unsustainable due to the sheer economics of it. They would need much more raw materiel, ships and Jaffa to expand further, however, their constant feuding and battles between each other is another factor which keeps them from overrunning our Galaxy." Harry paused for a moment, gathering his thoughts.

"The Asgard has, as the first part of their promise to help, delivered the information and means to construct subspace FTL communications technology to Earth's scientists," explained Harry, "what you see here," he gestured to the digital image of the Galaxy, "is the result. We are at the moment linked to a distant automated monitoring satellite system that has been placed at strategic positions outside of our Galaxy. With this, we will hardly ever be surprised by any significant shift in Goa'uld ship deployment."

"I don't like the 'hardly ever' part in that sentence," said Jack sarcastically.

"No technology is foolproof," said Harry with a sigh. "Due to the sheer distance these satellites are outside our Galaxy, they could not have the power to see...a cloaked vessel, for instance."

"So Apophis can still throw his fleet against Earth and we would not know it until he entered the atmosphere and started attacking," concluded General Hammond.

"Essentially, yes," affirmed Harry. "But my estimates are that he would need another two weeks to repair his fleet that was damaged in the Tobin System. And even then, Earth is not his top priority, he is more worried about asserting his dominance over the System Lords and eliminating the Tok'ra. We're at best a stinging bee to him, an irritation."

"Anyway," continued Harry, " a few weeks ago I managed to decrypt a Tok'ra communique detailing a mission report around the time when Colonel O'Neill and Teal'C was stranded in the X-301."

"You do Sig-Int on the Tok'ra?" said Jack, looking impressed.

"Indeed, I do," said Harry with a smirk on his face. "I remember their communication protocols from my time as one of them, and even though they have changed since then, it's not hard to guess how they will change them and so forth...I know how they think. The mission was one involving Selmak," Harry cast a significant eye towards Sam who perked up at the mention of the name of the symbiote her father was blended with, "he had detonated a weapons grade shipment of Naquadah near a rather rich Naquadah mine on this Goa'uld world." Harry pressed a button, and the Galaxy was wiped clean of its red and grey colorings and a single star was highlighted, quite close in relative terms to Earth, in fact, it was the closest Goa'uld territory. "The results, as anyone can imagine, was cataclysmic. A large chunk was ripped out of the planet, exposing the core and giving rise to a large asteroid belt that now surrounds the planet," the projecter changed to show a scan done of the severly damaged planet.

"The local Stargate was vaporized and of course the planet has become uninhabitable. This would normally render it unusable for anyone, but..." a smirk grew on Harry's face. "...on my request, the Asgard delivered a spare Stargate to the more stable side of the planet that I had specially reprogrammed."

"In what way was it changed?" asked Sam curiously.

"I isolated the DHD from the galactic Stargate network and programmed it to dial and receive from only one address...Earth," announced Harry.

"Are you telling me you've handed us an extremely Naquadah rich world on a figurative platter?" asked the General, looking astonished.

"Would you rather it be in the hands of the Goa'uld, fueling their war machine, General?" asked Harry rhetorically. "Now, obviously, you can't just stroll through the gate and start picking up Naquadah rocks. The mining team working the planet would have to be trained to work in pressurized suits and would need a lot of support on an ongoing basis from the SGC, but the concentration of Naquadah there makes it well worth it."

"Very well," nodded the General, as Harry switched off the projector and the lights came back on. The General turned to the assembled personnel, "Mining team leaders, I want training proposals on my desk by 1800, dismissed."

As everyone filed out, Sam approached Harry curiously. "I didn't know it was possible to reprogram a gate like that."

"The Stargate is a very versatile device, Sam," said Harry solemnly.

"Why haven't the Goa'uld done something like this?"

"The DHDs are programmed in Ancient machine code, they have no way to understand that," said Harry with a lopsided grin. Any further conversation was interupted when the base alarms went off and an incoming subspace path was announced. The General came rushing out of his office and hurried down the twisting metal staircase leading directly into the control room. Harry and Sam followed in his wake as the Iris was closed. Jack and Teal'C was already there.

The gate technician sitting behind the dailing computer was tapping at his keyboard and sure enough Harry saw an IDC signal coming through.

"Receiving IDC," announced the dark skinned Air Force tech, "Sir, we're receiving the IDC frequency, but this is not an authorized SGC code."

Harry stared at the screen as the decryption software worked on the signal and finally displayed a single word '_Comtraya_'.

"It says Comtraya," said Sam in recognition.

"What does that mean?" asked General Hammond.

"Ahhh," moaned Jack in comprehension, "it means shalome, or aloha, or that stuff."

"It was the greeting used by the artificial lifeform Harlan on PX3989," explained Teal'C stoically.

"The one who duplicated you?" asked Hammond.

Harry was dying to ask, but remained silent, as he was sure he would learn more by just observing. Artificial life form? That made similar copies of SG1?

"Yes, sir," said Jack with a grimace, "please, don't open the Gate, please."

"I admit, he was annoying, but he wasn't a serious threat," said Sam reasonably.

Hammond frowned for a few moments in consideration and then turned to the tech, "Open the iris."

The assembled group headed for the gate room as the iris slid open and waited at the base of the embarkation ramp with defense teams ready and aiming their PR-7s, just in case.

A rather portly figure emerged from the ripply blue event horizon, holding his arms up to shield his own face...as if it would help when being crushed against an Iris.

"Ohhh, ohhh," moaned the figure Harry assumed was Harlan, "I have no weapons!" he announced frantically as he dropped the arms shielding his face. The 'artificial life form' had a chubby face, worried looking grey eyes and a bald head with dark grey hair on the sides. He wore a rather elegantly looking black outfit with a large thick belt on which the buckle had strange patterns.

"Stand down," ordered Hammond to the defense teams, who lowered their weapons.

"Oh, thank you for opening the doorway device that you call iris," said Harlan with sheer gratitude written on his face. Harry had to admit, for an artificial life form, they did a first rate job of imitating a real person. But as Harry opened his senses to Harlan he was even more surprised...he sensed a definite consciousness seated in the intricate systems of the life form...somehow his people must have figured out a way to transfer consciousness into an artificial matrix of sorts. Harry's ancestors had never dabbled in it, as they preffered to let nature run its course to eventual ascencion.

"Just for the record," retorted Jack, looking displeased, "I was opposed."

Harlan's face fell, looking like an adorable puppy that had been kicked.

"Welcome to Earth," said General Hammond, skipping to the formalities, "I'm General Hammond, leader of this facility."

"Comtraya, yes, I have heard so much about you."

"What's wrong Harlan?" said Sam, looking concerned.

"Oh please, yes, its a very big emergency. You must help...you."

"Briefing room," said Hammond at once, and Harry could tell just by looking at the face of the General, that it was going to be one of those days.

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When everyone was seated around the briefing table, Harlan began his explanation of the fate of the artificial duplicates of Jack, Sam, Teal'C and Daniel that Harlan had created to help him maintain his own planet.

"I told them not to go. I begged them. Going through the Stargate is dangerous, very very dangerous. You told me about the Goa'uld, you did. You must help, yes, no?" Harlan was blabbing on, thankfully, Jack interupted his tirade.

"Harlan!"

"Yes?" asked Harlan looking sheepish.

"From the beginning, please."

"The beginning, yes," Harlan paused, "They were not happy, they could not stop being you. The portable power pack you invented..."

"The robot me?" asked Sam.

"Oh, it was ingenious. Even Hubald would have been impressed. I have one in my chest now, would you like to see it?"

"Yes," said Sam eagerly.

"No!" exclaimed Jack with a frown. "You can show her later."

"Later yes. Help first," conceded Harlan looking sheepish again.

"What type of help do you require?" asked Teal'C.

"Oh, not me. You," he waved his hands in frustration, "I mean the others."

"What exactly has happened?" asked General Hammond.

"Well, they have not returned," explained Harlan.

"Where are they?" asked Sam.

"Away, they go away," said Harlan. Harry thought that Harlan seemed to have a few screws loose, he couldn't seem to make sense of inferences and underlying meaning.

"Are you saying our robot selves are going through the Stargate on missions?" said Sam incredulously.

"Missions, yes," said Harlan, pointing at Sam.

"What for?" asked Jack curiously.

"I do not really know," said Harlan perplexed. "What is it, that you do?" he pointed to SG1 in turn.

"Colonel O'Neill," said General Hammond sternly, "it was my understanding that the robots agreed to bury their Stargate and never leave their planet."

"Yes, sir," said Jack uncomfortably.

"Then it would seem that your robot counterpart is as equally good at following orders as you," said the General sarcastically.

"They have always returned after 24 hours. For safety. The power packs only last for 48 hours and they must be recharged."

"How overdue are they?" asked Sam.

"Sixteen hours. They do not have much time left. Ohhh," moaned Harlan in anxiousness.

"General," said Jack after a moment's consideration, "I don't think we're responsible for retrieving these robots."

"But you must. They are you," implored Harlan.

"Not me they're not," argued Jack insistently.

"Where is Doctor Jackson? He will help," said Harlan, looking around.

"He's on a mission at the moment," said Sam.

"Ohhh, you do that so much," said Harlan with a smile.

"The fact is," said Hammond eventually, "I don't want to risk any of my people for the sake of some androids you created without authorization. However..."

"However, yes?" said Harlan eagerly.

"...I am worried that information on this facility could potentially fall into the wrong hands."

"Ah...an excellent point," said the android.

"Sirs if I may," said Sam thoughtfully, "our robots are really so much like us they probably couldn't resist the chance to use the Gate to explore. I think then we can also assume that they would guard any top-secret information as closely as we would. Besides they don't have our IDC codes so they can't give those away."

"Colonel O'Neill, if you don't want to take this on, I'm not going to make it an order," said Hammond.

"Thank you, sir," said Jack gratefully.

"But I have grown accustomed, I cannot go on without them," said Harlan, looking desperate.

"Sorry," said Sam, looking resigned.

"Then I shall just have to help myself," said Harlan with a frown.

In the control room, Harlan was displayed a chart of the glyph co-ordinate system, and he selected the seven symbol address to where the android SG1 had gated to and was now missing.

"Hmmm," murmured Sam, staring at the address sequence.

"What is it, Sam?" asked Harry.

"We've visited this planet before," declared Sam, cross- referencing the address with the dailing computer. "P2X-729."

"We did engage in battle with the Jaffa of Heru'er. And liberated the people of Juna," explained Teal'C to Harry, as he had not been involved in the effort.

"That's right," said Sam looking thoughtful, "we told them to bury their gate after we were gone. Are you sure you've got the right address?"

"I could do a full diagnostic of my systems," said Harlan with a smile, "but it would be faster to simply dial the address."

"Proceed," ordered Hammond.

"Yes, sir," nodded Sam and she and the gate technician began to input a dailing sequence, causing the base to raise a warning alarm to all personnel.

The inner wheel of the Stargate groaned for a moment and began to spin smoothly, locking in place each glyph co-ordinate, slowly but surely. The final seventh chevron, locked and the 'kawoosh' of energy roared out of the mouth of the Stargate and settled into a smooth event horizon.

"The Gate isn't buried," said Sam with worry.

"It is possible the Goa'uld travelled to the planet by ship in order to reinstate command," said Teal'C

"Heru'er is dead, the Naquadah mine was dry, those people didn't pose any threat," argued Sam. Harry sat down at the nearest workstation and brought up the Galaxy map and found the position of Juna.

"Juna is nevertheless, in a strategic military position for basing troops though," said Harry, staring at the sector that Juna occupied.

"We told them they'd be ok," said Sam, allowing guilt to creep into her voice.

"Send a probe, let's find out," ordered Hammond.

The MALP probe was wheeled out a few minutes later and trundled up the embarkation ramp and slipped through the event horizon with a wet shlurping sound.

"Receiving MALP telemetry," reported Sam as the screen in front of her changed to show what the MALP was seeing through its on board camera. Harry saw that the area around the Juna Stargate was surrounded by a rather dense forest and allowed for covert approaches to the Gate, which was rather odd. Most System Lords cleared any vegetation for a few miles around the Stargate on their worlds to prevent the enemy gaining cover when attacking through the Gate, then again, Heru'er was Ra's offspring, and was known for his arrogance and pride. At first, no one was visible, the MALP camera panned and abruptly a rather worse for the wear Jack O'Neill came into view. Harry looked to his left to see Jack's reaction to seeing his robot clone.

"Woah," winced Jack, "I'll never get used to that."

"This is General Hammond of the SGC," spoke Hammond through the microphone, which broadcasted his voice through a tiny speaker on board the MALP.

The robot Jack kneeled in front of the MALP to look directly into camera, "Hey George, how you doing?" said robot Jack cheerfully. "Who you got there with you?"

"Major Carter, Teal'C, Colonel O'Neill, Ambassador Harry, a new addition to the team, and Harlan."

"Harlan!" snapped robot Jack into the camera, looking angry. "I told you to stay away from Earth!"

"Yeah, well, I told you to bury your Gate!" snapped real Jack into the microphone.

"Well, you seem to think that solves a lot of problems, dontcha?" drawled robot Jack sarcastically.

"SG1 was following my orders," said Hammond stridently.

"I'm sorry," moaned Harlan in distress, "I didn't know what else to do. Please return to our planet."

"I can't do that, just yet," said robot Jack, shaking his head. In that same moment, robot Jack was seen smoothly spinning around and drawing a Zat gun and aiming it at a figure that had appeared out of the nearby foliage. It was a young man with blonde hair dressed in leathers and fur and carrying a crossbow. Seeing that robot Jack had him covered, the young man raised his crossbow over his head in a gesture of surrender.

"Do not shoot, I wish to help you," said the young man.

"Why?" asked robot Jack sucpiciously.

"I now believe you spoke the truth about everything. Including the gods," said the young man confidently.

"Why should I believe you?"

"You must trust me, as I trust you. I am sorry about the one called Daniel." _That did not bode well_, thought Harry. Robot Jack was seemingly convinced and lowered the Zat gun and gestured to come closer. "To whom are you speaking?" asked the young man, when he stood in front of the camera looking confused.

"That's Darian," said Sam when the face became recognizable, "he was the one who led his people with us in battling Heru'er."

"Earth," answered robot Jack to Darian, "George Hammond and the other SG1."

"Hey!" said real Jack angrily, "you're the _other_, pal!"

"Do we really have time for semantics here?" asked robot Jack with exasperation.

"What exactly is the current situation?" asked General Hammond, getting the situation back to business.

"My Carter and Teal'C have been captured by Chronus," reported robot Jack. Harry stiffened instantly at the mention of the hated System Lord and leaned forward his eyes hard with intent. The real Teal'C's jaw instantly began flexing in anger. "He's got a ship in orbit and his Jaffa are everywhere. So it's just Darian and me."

"Please, help us," said Darian into the camera.

"You have a go. SG1 is on its way..." the General considered Harry for a moment, "...and some extra backup."

"Thanks George," nodded robot Jack. "Harlan! You stay there!" Harlan folded his hands and nodded.

Harry, real Jack, Teal'C and Sam rematerialized and stepped as one through the Juna Stargate, fully geared and kitted out for combat; their PR7s sweeping the area as a precaution. At first there was no one in sight, but Darian soon stepped out of the treeline nearby.

"This way," he beckoned. The group of five walked along through the woods and Jack felt compelled to offer his apologies.

"Listen, for what it's worth, I'm sorry about what happened here."

"Oh, I'm sure that makes him feel so much better," said robot Jack sarcastically, who was sitting patiently waiting on a felled tree.

"Hey!" snapped real Jack, striding over to robot Jack, looking incensed. "What the hell do you think you're doing?"

"Same thing you do," said robot Jack smugly, "only better."

"What's that supposed to mean?" said real Jack, looking outraged.

"Better?" said robot Jack condescendingly. "It means _bet-ter_, stronger, faster."

"You're not me," snapped real Jack, "and you don't work for the Air Force."

"No," conceded robot Jack, "but that doesn't mean I can't do the job."

"What job?"

"Explore the Universe, fight the Goa'uld," said robot Jack non-chalantly.

"Oh what, like now?" said real Jack sarcastically.

"Oh, you made this mess."

"What we did was help these people," retorted real Jack.

"Oh come on," said robot Jack in exasperation, "I know you better than that. You screwed up and now you're embarrased."

"Well that's not the point!"

"And like I'm gonna spend my eternity on that lame ass planet?" said robot Jack with raised eyebrows, "sheesh."

"You gave me your word!"

"Oh is this the first time you've lied to yourself?" asked robot Jack with a sigh. "I told you what you wanted to hear. Besides, what were you gonna do? Destroy me?"

"I might have," said real Jack with narrowed eyes.

"Alright, come on, bring it on flyboy," said robot Jack provokingly, jumping off the tree and making a come hither gesture, "Let's go. Come on."

"Why you little!" said real Jack, and they grabbed at each other and began to wrestle. Harry rather wished he had a camera to immortalize this moment and circulate it via e-mail around the SGC...it would certainly provide for a few hilarious moments around the base; but time was precious.

"Jacks!" shouted Harry. Both robot and real Jack paused in their struggle and looked at Harry. "While I'm sure this is a truly unique moment for the both of you," said Harry stridently, "how about we get down to business and work out how to kill a System Lord and save the people of this planet."

"What can so few of us do?" asked Darian hopelessly, as robot and real Jack pushed off each other.

"Couldn't get Hammond to spring for more troops?" asked robot Jack.

"I didn't ask. This is our problem," said real Jack, "besides...the Ambassador here is really all the back-up we'll need."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence, Jack," said Harry wryly.

"So you've got some new fancy toys," said robot Jack, looking at the PR7s, "big deal."

"My bona fides will become apparent as we liberate the people of Juna, tin man," said Harry bitingly, staring at robot Jack.

"Oooh, that's clever," said robot Jack sarcastically.

"I guess we can't expect any help from the people of Juna?" asked Sam, looking at Darian.

"No," said Darian, looking grim.

"We convinced your people to oppose the Goa'uld before," reasoned Teal'C.

"Most, including myself, had never seen an actual god before. Heru'er had not come to Juna for many generations. And when Chronus arrived and displayed his great power he instilled much fear. The people are terrified."

"Then we must demonstrate once and for all that Chronus is not a god," said Harry simply.

"I suppose you have a plan to back up that rather bold and cryptic statement?" said robot Jack.

"Yes. Yes we do," said real Jack indignantly.

The forest was pierced then with the sound of a Jaffa horn call, signalling for a patrol to begin.

"It is not safe to stay here, the forests are heavily patrolled," said Darian, and rushed off, Harry, Teal'C and Sam following, while real and robot Jack couldn't resist a last parting shot.

"We're not done pal!"

"I so own you!"

The impromptu group of six liberation fighters gathered in Darian's house which was a rather modest wooden cottage with at best, medieval era conveniences. The chairs were rough, hard and rickety while the cottage itself had a rather homely cosy atmosphere. Trophies from hunts adorned the walls and the occasional basic decoration in terms of Junan culture also hung from them.

"The only rings I've ever seen were in the main pyramid," said robot Jack.

"There is a way into the main chamber," said Teal'C.

"Yeah, by putting the robot at risk," snorted robot Jack.

"Well fine, I'll do it," said real Jack with a sigh.

"No, neither of you will," said Harry with a shake of his head, "whoever attacks the main chamber will be assaulted from several directions by the various Jaffa guards stationed around the rings. Since I have a personal shield I'm the best person for the job."

"Fine," said real Jack, nodding at Harry.

"So how many Jaffa are we going to have to deal with on that ship?" asked robot Jack.

"As many as one thousand," said Teal'C, "but that is not the problem."

"What is the problem?" asked real Jack.

"The rings must be activated from within the ship itself," said Harry, staring at robot Jack pointedly.

"Now see, you didn't mention that before," said real Jack delicately.

"We had very little time to formulate this plan, O'Neill."

"It's all right," said robot Jack, looking strangely at Harry. "Carter and Teal'C might be able to help. The other ones."

"How are they gonna know what to do and when?" asked real Jack pointedly.

"I can communicate with them," said robot Jack nonchalantly, "I've been maintaining radio silence to protect my location."

"I don't see a radio?"

"They're internal," said robot Jack in a tone that said it should have been obvious.

"So you can actually send a signal?" asked Sam.

"Wait," said robot Jack, and tapped his chest, his eyes had a faraway look to them as he apparently communicated with robot Teal'C and Sam. "There's a bit of static..." he tapped his chest again a few moments later he announced, "They said they'd do what they can."

"What about the Jaffa on the ship?"

"Once we have reached the Pel'tak(bridge), the other levels can be sealed off. Chronus will have very few Jaffa remaining for support," explained Teal'C.

"What do we do with the other Jaffa once we've dealt with Chronus and taken over the ship?" asked Sam.

"Offer them freedom," said Teal'C with relish.

Cindar, the First Prime Jaffa of Chronus, sat on the throne in the inner chamber of the Junan Pyramid in seemingly pensive thought. Whatever goes through the mind of a First Prime when seated on his god's throne was interuppted however, when a lower ranked Jaffa entered and bowed his head in respect for his First Prime.

"Report?" ordered Cindar, his frown wrinkling underneath the Gold encrusted tattoo on his forehead, marking him as a servant of Chronus.

"The intruder has been captured," said the Jaffa.

What looked like robot Jack was brought in, his arms bound behind his back and being escorted by a rather pleased looking Darian pointing his crossbow into Jack's back. The pair came to a stop in the middle of the room before Cindar.

"Chronus will be pleased," smirked the First Prime.

"Truth be told," said Darian, "I don't think Chronus will be pleased at all." And without hesitating, let loose a crossbow bolt that lodged itself right into the vulnerable gap in Cindar's armor, piercing deep into his chest and causing the First Prime to sink to the floor in pain. Meanwhile, robot Jack had freed his hands and PR7s had seemingly appeared from thin air in either hand. Two Jaffa were felled on either side of robot Jack as Darian fell to the floor to wait out the firefight. Robot Jack stood over Darien and shifted his aim and started to fire a stream of blue lines of energy from either PR7, killing surprised Jaffa after Jaffa. Staff blasts started to lance into robot Jack but were stopped cold by an emerald green shield that conformed to his body. Robot Jack, shifted one PR7 to fire forward and another behind him and killed two more Jaffa, he followed it up by ducking low and pirouetting in a circle, tracing his PR7 fire to kill the last four Jaffa in the inner chamber.

"Clear!" called robot Jack towards the entrance of the chamber, helping Darian up.

Real Jack and another robot Jack entered, with Sam and Teal'C bring up the rear.

"This is most strange," said Darian, staring at the three Jack O'Neill's in confusion.

"Stuff like this happens to us all the time," said Sam with a grin.

The robot Jack that had assaulted the inner chamber seemed to flicker and now standing in his place was a grim looking Harry, his green tinted chromesuit shifting in the firelight of the room.

"Nice work," sniffed robot Jack, who was despite himself, looking slightly impressed. Harry merely bowed his head in acceptance.

"Those who're looking for a ride, better get on the rings," said real Jack.

Harry, Teal'C, Sam, real and robot Jack stood cramped within the circle of the rings on the floor, waiting for either robot Sam or Teal'C to ring them up.

"Will you be OK down here?" asked Sam to Darian.

"I'll be fine," said Darian, grabbing a staff weapon from a dead Jaffa. The whooshing sound of the transporter rings abruptly filled the air as the group within the rings were surrounded by four thick obsidian cirlces and with a flash of light were dematerialized and whisked up into the Goa'uld Ha'tak mothership in orbit.

When Harry could make out his surroundings again, they were in a Ring room, and the feel of artificial gravity pervaded his senses. Robot Sam was in the room, holding a Zat gun, and her efforts were apparent as the floor was littered with dead or unconscious Jaffa.

"Nice work," said real Jack.

"Teal'C's in trouble," said robot Sam, without wasting a moment.

"Where?" said real Teal'C.

"He's on the Pel'tac with Chronus," said robot Sam. Harry and Teal'C left immediately and without a word. As the vengeful duo walked down the corridor, Teal'C spoke up.

"I understand you wish vengeance on Chronus for your wife's family and her entire civilization," said Teal'C, training his staff weapon down corridors as they passed. "But he killed my father...allow me the satisfaction of the killing blow."

"Very well," said Harry after a moment's consideration, also scanning the area with dual PR7s. "I suppose it will be enough that I support you and back you up." Harry would allow Teal'C this, as he himself would most definitely want the killing blow on Tom Riddle for his own parent's deaths.

When real Teal'C and Harry emerged onto the Pel'tac, it was to find Chronus himself aiming a staff weapon onto a damaged and prone robot Teal'C. Harry stopped next to the throne of Chronus, while real Teal'C zatted and grabbed the lone remaining Jaffa Chronus had from behind. Using the unconscious Jaffa as a shield, real Teal'C fired a zat blast at Chronus. Since the Goa'uld had his hands occupied carrying a staff weapon, he couldn't engage his own personal shield, but Chronus was far from defeated.

The System Lord looked up and smirked. He merely raised his left hand and the Ribbon device attached to it pulsed with a restrained shockwave that almost acted as a shield and harmlessly absorbed the zat blast. Despite himself, Harry was impressed, the level of thought and emotional control needed to wield a Ribbon device in that fashion was extreme.

Chronus brought the staff weapon in his right hand to bear and fired. The blast hit the Jaffa shielding real Teal'C, but the concussive shock of it knocked both to the floor anyway. The System Lord turned the staff weapon on Harry with a sneer and fired. Harry simply dodged and the blast shot a chunk out of the wall behind him.

"Ambassador," said Chronus, with a sneer, "aiding the Tau'ri in their foolish resistance now, are we?"

"Indeed," said Harry and dodged another blast.

"You are a representative of the Asgard," said Chronus in his distorted voice, "you would risk open war?"

"You don't have the stomach for a fight with the Asgard, pathetic snake," sneered Harry in turn. "Apophis is breathing down your collective necks..." Harry shot a few bursts of blue plasma energy at Chronus, but the System Lord merely absorbed the shots as he did with Teal'C.

"How dare you..."

Chronus would have finished his sentence. But his face turned ashen and his eyes glowed white as the symbiote inside the body writhed in pain. The sound of a staff weapon blast reached Harry's ears and the System Lord's body rippled from the shock as he was hit from behind. Chronus sank to his knees and another shot lanced into his back, forcing the now dead System Lord's body to fall face forward onto the hard floor of the Pel'tac. It revealed a critically wounded robot Teal'C; silver android blood dripping from his mouth, who had managed to gather a staff weapon and shoot the distracted Chronus from behind.

Robot Teal'C turned his head to look at a recovering real Teal'C getting up from under the body of the dead Jaffa.

"For our father," said robot Teal'C with a satisfied smile, and fell to the ground...dead.

Harry and Teal'C walked over to the dead form of Chronus and for a long time, just stood over the body. Harry felt rather ambivalent about this event, but he relished the idea of finally being able to tell Apollonia that Chronus was dead.

"The people of Juna need to see this," said Harry eventually. Teal'C nodded, but first knelt next to the dead robot Teal'C.

"I will bury you in a place of honor Teal'C," murmured Teal'C to the dead robot version of himself, and closed the sightless eyes of his counterpart. The former First Prime of Apophis now turned to the body of Chronus and lifted it over his shoulders and headed back towards the Ring room. Harry sighed at the mess in the Pel'tac and after holstering both his PR7s gestured with his hands outward. The bodies of all the dead Jaffa vanished into oblivion with a swirling sound of power, leaving only Harry and the dead robot Teal'C in the Pel'tac.

Harry walked over to the pilot's console for the mothership and placed his hands into the purple control slots and stared out of the forward viewscreen into the starfield. His pensive mood was interupted when real Sam walked onto the Pel'tac. She looked sad to see the dead robot Teal'C.

"All of them are gone," she murmured.

"How?" asked Harry, as he inputted descent co-ordinates to land on top of the Juna pyramid.

"My double died from overload, she had to stick her hands through a force shield to pull out the door control crystals to isolate this level," said Sam sadly, "the other Jack died when his power ran out."

"A pity," said Harry with a sigh, as the ship began to rock slightly from descending into the atmosphere, "it would've been invaluable to study them. And it seems that Harlan will need new androids to help him out."

"Maybe you can allow him to make some copies of you, if you're that interested in the androids," reasoned Sam.

"Perhaps," said Harry, as the Ha'tak landed with a lurch on its pyramid.

88888888888888888888888888888

It was later that day, that Chronus' body was displayed to all the Junans and the over eight hundred Jaffa that had remained on the Ha'tak mothership. It made a strong impact on the Jaffa, and after an impassioned speech by Teal'C, all but fifty Jaffa accepted that the Goa'uld were false gods and vowed to join the rebellion. The fifty who still refused to renounce and merely claimed it was a Tau'ri trick were killed...to prevent word from reaching the Goa'uld about what had happened on Juna, lest it invite the collective wrath of the System Lords.

The seven hundred and fifty Jaffa then decided to split up. A contingent of two hundred would stay behind on Juna as guests and protection. Three hundred decided to go to Chulak and report secretly to Master Bra'tac, while the remainder would split up into even smaller groups and head to their respective homeworlds in Chronus' domain to spread the seeds of rebellion.

Teal'C was given the honor of disintegrating Chronus' body with a Zat gun before over two thousand witnesses.

Late in the evening SG1 and Harry gathered on the Pel'tac to debate on what to do with Chronus' state of the art mothership.

"I take it we can't just park this thing in the Nevada desert and let the folks of Area 51 take her apart?" said Jack wryly.

"That would be a bad idea, sir," said Sam with a grin. "This ship is over five hundred meters in width, and unlike Apophis's ships, it can't cloak. Meaning we would be visible to NASA deep space radar the moment we pass Jupiter and dozens of privately funded satellites if we ever came close to Earth with it. We're lucky Apophis maintained a extremely high orbit when he attacked Earth the first time."

"So we can't take this thing home," concluded Jack.

"There's also the matter of the time it would take," said Harry, gesturing to the forward view screen as a hologram screen appeared. It showed the Galaxy, with a course from Juna to Earth plotted with a red line. "Juna is about eighteen thousand lightyears from Earth, at the top speed this ship is capable of...a week's journey, not to mention we would have to traverse through Lord Yu's territory which is between us and Earth."

"Couldn't we just plot a course up and out of the galactic plane and go over Yu's territory?" asked Sam.

"That is an option yes," conceded Harry, "it shortens the journey as well, but if anything was to go wrong with this ship we would be stranded with no nearby planets with a functioning Stargate,"

"The Alpha site?" questioned Teal'C.

Harry considered it and plotted a new course.

"That looks better," stated Sam. "Only three days and we could avoid most of Yu's territory by just hopping out of the Galaxy at it's narrowest width."

"There is another thing you should consider," said Harry with a weary sigh.

"And that is?" asked Jack with a narrowed eyes, as he apparently sensed the sound of the other shoe dropping.

"The consequences when it becomes known that the Tau'ri have captured and commandeered a Ha'tak," said Harry looking Jack straight in the eye.

"And what consequences would there be?" asked Jack suspiciously.

"For one, the System Lords and Apophis would no longer consider us a bug to be swatted at their leisure, but rather a snake whose head needs chopping off," said Harry grimly.

"The Ambassador raises a good point," said Teal'C.

"How are the Goa'uld ever going to find out?" asked Jack in exasperation.

"If any of the liberated Jaffa are captured, for one," explained Harry.

"I have instructed them to state that the ship lost control and was destroyed in Juna's atmosphere, should they ever be interrogated on the subject," said Teal'C.

"That will buy some time, yes. But when the remaining Goa'uld claim Chronus's territory they will notice his flagship is missing, and correctly deduce what happened to it."

"So we move up on their hit list," said Jack in exasperation, "it's been a long time coming, and we've still got you and the Asgard in our deck of cards."

"Very well, I hope you have all said your goodbyes," said Harry with a frown. "The sooner we leave for the Alpha site, the better."

"We're good," said Jack cheerfully as he hopped onto Chronus' throne childishly. "Full speed ahead, Mr Ambassador. To the Alpha site!"

"Aye, aye Captain," said Harry sarcastically, as the Ha'tak rumbled with power and rose high into the atmosphere leaving Juna behind and a few moments later jumping into the swirling vortex that was Hyperspace.

**Three and a half days later...**

Earth's Alpha site, a planet derived from the Ancient map of Stargates which was unknown to the Goa'uld, and was the card of last resort in the Tau'ri game of survival against the Goa'uld. If a planetary invasion was imminent, a select group of scientists, artists, engineers, soldiers and anyone else critical to the continuance of Earth's way of life would be evacuated to this world through the Stargate. However, most of the time it served the role as a secondary SGC to which SG teams could travel if for any reason the primary SGC was cut off for some or other emergency. A single reduced company of SGC troops served here to maintain security and even do the odd mission when Earth's Stargate was too busy.

The Alpha site was situated in a picturesque valley with trees and bird wildlife remarkably similar but yet different to Earth and was made up of numerous prefab buildings. Normally, it was quite still during any normal day of operations and very little would disturb the tranquility of the place; except when the troops did drills, or shooting practice. Many in the SGC considered Alpha site duty a vacation to an extent when compared to the frenetic pace of duty at the primary SGC on Earth. Today was different however, and would forever mark the day when the Alpha site would lose that 'vacation' moniker.

A full company of Force Recon Marines had come through the Stargate, soon followed by a veritable slew of scientists and engineers from Area 51. The Commander of the Alpha Site was hard pressed to maintain order; it was easy to send the Force Recon Marines to beef up security and hand out duties and assignments, but the scientists were a whole different ballgame. Their luggage and equipment was enormous and judging by the portly looks on some of them, the Commander knew his food budget for this month would need to be doubled if not tripled. They were like hyperactive kids who couldn't wait for their next candy fix. They all huddled in groups and chattered about in their scientific jargon and would occasionally look up at the sky.

Finally, the reason for the sudden influx of personnel appeared.

The massive form of a Goa'uld mothership descending to land a few kilometers away from the base made for an impressive sight.

Harry stood next to the active Alpha Site Stargate a few hours later and spoke to a visibly excited looking Dr Lee, who would be in charge of the scientists and engineers going over the Ha'tak.

"Now, I've disabled the command overrides and the self-destruct, so you won't have a problem with system access or the thing deciding to blow up because it doesn't like the fact that you're taking it apart," said Harry sarcastically. "Be careful when examining the Shield generators and Hyperdrive, there's a lot of energy going through that, so don't just randomly start taking out control crystals, make sure you reference my program to determine what does what, ok?"

"Ok, got it!" said Dr Lee, and skipped off towards a waiting HUMVEE that would take him back to the grounded Ha'tak.

Harry stepped through the active Stargate and the familiar disembodied rollercoaster feeling fell over his senses and abruptly he walked out of the Earth Stargate and back into the SGC. Jack was waiting at the bottom of the ramp looking supremely disgruntled as the Gate shut down behind Harry.

"What's the matter?" asked Harry with narrowed eyes.

"Tok'ra are here," said Jack with an almost sneer to his face.

"That didn't take long, they had to have an agent keeping close tabs on Chronus," said Harry, looking unconcerned as they walked out of the Gate room and into the hallways of the SGC. "What do they want?"

"They're oh-so kindly asking for the use of '_our_' new ship, in relocating their base on Vorash to a world off the Goa'uld map," said Jack unhappily.

"Not an unreasonable request in the terms of our treaty with them," said Harry airily.

"Ah come on," said Jack exasperated. "I know what's going to happen, we lend them the ship, then they're going to do some foolhardy mission while they're relocating and in the process it gets blown up or damaged. They're doing this on purpose to get their greedy little mittens on it, when we did all the hard work."

"Rather cynical of you Jack," said Harry with a frown.

"Not cynical, it's called Murphy's law."

"Relax Jack," said Harry with a smile, patting the irate Colonel on the arm, "I've got it covered."

"What?" asked Jack in confusion as they entered the briefing room.

General Hammond was in his seat, next to him, in the dull brown tones of a Tok'ra uniform sat Jacob Carter ie. Selmak and the two men were talking in low tones. Sam was sitting across from her father scribbling in a notebook, while Daniel and Teal'C were conversing over a sheet of Goa'uld writing. The five looked up as Jack and Harry entered and sat down.

"How is everything at the Alpha Site, Ambassador?" asked General Hammond.

"Things are proceeding smoothly, Dr Lee and his team is examining the vessel as we speak," said Harry.

"Has Colonel O'Neill filled you in on the request from the Tok'ra?"

"He has," confirmed Harry. "However, it's not necessary for the Tok'ra to use the Chronus' Ha'tak."

"I don't understand," said Hammond with a frown.

"Are you saying the Asgard is willing to do this for us?" asked Jacob Carter.

"No," said Harry shaking his head, "they don't have the ships to spare. I, however, do." This brought everyone's astonished attention to Harry.

"Beyond the MEV," said Daniel, "you never mentioned any other...ships. I certainly didn't see any other on Seaworld."

"How much of Seaworld did you actually see, Daniel?" asked Harry with a grin.

"Very little, now that you mention it."

"I've never wanted to stay reliant on the Asgard for every little thing I wanted to do," explained Harry. "As such, the moment the means became available to me, I undertook ship building projects on Seaworld. Two concurrently built ships were finally completed a month ago."

"Is it big enough for our needs?" said Jacob, looking hesitant and slightly unhappy.

"One is more than enough to accomodate all the Tok'ra and their equipment on Vorash, I will ask my wife to fly you wherever you wish to go," said Harry with a grin, "while I fly the sister ship and provide escort."

"Jacob?" prompted General Hammond when he saw the older General was hesitating.

"Very well," said Jacob with a nod.

"When do you want to evacuate?" asked Harry, tenting his fingers under his chin.

"As soon as possible," answered Jacob, whose head dipped and then rose to speak with the voice of a blended host, "we need to remove the double agent Tanith from our midst, he has served his purpose. Ideally, you would arrive just as this is taking place."

"My ships can reach Vorash in twelve hours, if SG1 wishes they can join me for the trip?" asked Harry lightly.

"Sir?" asked Jack of General Hammond, looking much more happier.

"You have a go."

Harry and SG1 stepped through the Seaworld Stargate not ten minutes later. It was early morning at this time on Seaworld.

"Ok everyone, stand still," said Harry, as everyone was enveloped in a column of white light and disappeared from the idyllic island on which the Stargate was situated.

They reappeared on a catwalk suspended over a huge square shaped cavern that seemingly fell hundreds of meters below them and stretched nearly three kilometers in front them.

"Wow," said Daniel, cleaning his glasses and putting them on again.

"Oh boy," said Jack, looking extremely impressed.

"Indeed," said Teal'C stoically.

Sam was speechless.

"Lady and Gentlemen, may I present the _Achilles_ and the _Briseus_," gestured Harry with a satisfied flourish.

Below them, partially berthed on anti-gravity platforms, were two massive ships. Both were shaped as an oval saucer, that easily measured nine hundred meters as their largest diameter and stood in height measured from the central lowest to highest point nearly two hundred and fifty meters. The hull was an almost grey-black color and around the perimeter of the oval saucer a thick near transparent strip glowed a dull blue. The hull was tapered and almost seamless, and grooves ran along it, reminiscent of the MEVs hull. There were strips and rows of windows that pockmarked the hull in concentric circles from the centre. (_A/N: To get a visual idea of this ship, think of the saucer section from the USS Enterprise NCC-1701-J as seen in Star Trek: Enterprise: Azati Prime_)

A column of light descended from the ceiling to land next to Harry and when the light faded, it revealed Apollonia. She wore near diaphanous emerald green robes that was only opaque in the right places to allow her to appear amongst company. But it did little to hide the bulge of her pregnant abdomen. Harry was suffused with the warmth of her presence and he hugged her from behind, as they mentally communicated a myriad of things too numerous to mention in words.

"Sam, Teal'C, you have not met my wife yet," said Harry with a happy grin, his eyes twinkling. "Apollonia, meet Teal'C and Major Samantha Carter."

"Master Teal'C," bowed Apollonia, "you have my profound gratitude for ridding the Galaxy of Chronus. It's been a long time coming."

"It is an honor to meet you," said Teal'C, "and may I offer congratulations on your being with child."

"A pleasure," nodded Sam, and managed an friendly hug with Apollonia, despite the bulge of her abdomen in the way.

"So the Tok'ra want a lift, do they?" asked Apollonia rhetorically. "Which ship do you want to go on? You can go with my husband or me."

"What's the difference?" asked Daniel.

"There's no essential difference between them," said Harry. "The _Briseus_ is my wife's ship, the _Achilles_ is mine."

"I'm sticking with you," said Sam, sidling up next to Apollonia.

"OK guys, I guess, that means you're coming with me," said Harry, "have to allow the girls some time for girl talk." Sam and Apollonia grinned at each other.

On board the _Achilles_ four columns of light flashed and Harry, Jack, Teal'C and Daniel appeared. They were in a corridor that had an octagonal cross section, that was lit with soft blue lighting and near obsidian black floors. The shapes of doors, buttons and everything else had a precise geometric shape and was placed in with a clear mathematical relationship to everything else. Harry had designed it along the same principles as the Alterans, in honor of his ancestors.

"Welcome aboard," said Harry and gestured to the others to follow him. They walked for along the corridor that curved slowly to the right, until Harry came to a stop next to a door. He waved his hand over a panel that glowed with three blue lights. The door swished open near silently and they entered a comfortable sitting room with plush soft furniture and what looked like a small self serve kitchennete, two doors branched off from the room. "This is a VIP guest room to while away the hours of our journey," explained Harry, "the large screens on the wall can offer any entertainment current to Earth, Tollan, and Hebridia, there's Asgard as well, but I would stay away from that."

"Sweet," said Jack, looking at the hi-tech yet comfortable surroundings, and plopping himself down on a lazyboy chair.

"Before you get settled I suppose you want to watch the ship taking off from the bridge?" asked Harry lightly.

"Yes," said Jack eagerly, vaulting himself up instantly, and straightening his combat BDUs. Daniel rolled his eyes at Jack's antics and they followed Harry out into the corridor.

"If you need to get back here on your own, simply ask the computer to guide you," said Harry with a grin as they walked.

"How? What do you mean?" asked Daniel.

"Computer?" spoke Harry in answer.

"_Hello Harry_," came a rather familiar but slightly distorted voice from all around them. "_It's nine o' clock in the morning here on Seaworld. I've already taken the liberty of warming up the engines and all systems are go_."

"Is that..." said Jack uncertainly.

"Apollonia's voice, yes," confirmed Harry airily. They finally approached the end of the corridor, where a set of double doors were waiting for them. They opened automatically and the four men entered what three of them assumed was an elevator. There were no buttons next to the doors and no visible means of controlling the elevator. They saw Harry turn to a screen along the back wall of the elevator which displayed a diagram of the ship. He tapped his finger on a dot near the central core of the ship. The doors closed and abruptly they were all blinded with white light that filled the small room, which dissipated just as fast. When the doors opened they realized that they had actually stepped into a Ring platform...without the rings.

Harry led the way out into a darkened room; so dark that no walls or ceiling was visible. The only feature of the bridge was a very prominent thick chair that almost seemed to be made out of marble, and was rather artfully decorated in a Romanesque style.

"Is this the bridge?" asked Jack in confusion, looking around for anything that resembled a control panel or even a window.

"It is," confirmed Harry and approached the thick chair.

"Well that chair certainly seems like something the Ancients would build," commented Daniel.

"Very good eye, Daniel," praised Harry, "the Control chair is near symbolic in my ancestors' culture as a reflection of their power and abilities." Harry sat down in the chair and instantly the transparent portions of it lit up with blue light, including the immediate area on the floor.

"Ah, so it works like the MEV," surmised Daniel. Harry nodded and concentrated. The black void around them instantly disappeared and was replaced with a 360 degree view around the _Achilles_ of the cavern in which it was berthed.

"Ok, don't be alarmed by the transition, the ship is about to be transported into orbit around Seaworld," warned Harry, and closed his eyes. Jack, Daniel and Teal'C saw their world consumed with bright white light and the next moment it faded and it took them every bit of discipline they had not to cry out in shock; because it suddenly felt as if they were standing in the void of space above Seaworld. The only anchor they had to the fact that they were on a bridge in a ship was the glowing Control Chair on which Harry was seated.

"Whoah," said Daniel, shaking his head and hurrying towards the Control Chair to stand next to it, Teal'C and Jack following soon after. There was a massive bloom of white light to the _Achilles_' starboard side and its sister ship materialized next to it. Harry hands fell to the front armrests where a gelatin like pad was situated; his fingers burrowed into it and began to move in intricate patterns. A hologram appeared a few meters in front of Harry and the others quickly deduced that Harry was programming a course for the ship with his mind. The hologram disappeared soon after.

"Hyperspace in 3..2..1..," said Harry and in front of the ship a massive twisting purple vortex of Hyperspace opened...from the aft section of the emmitter that lined the perimeter of the ship a blue flash was seen as the ship was hurtled into Hyperspace...the _Briseus_ following not a moment later.

**Vorash... **

Harry, Jack, Teal'C and Daniel emerged from one of the many Armory's on the _Achilles_ fully equipped in the desert camouflage BDUs of the SGC and PR7s. Harry raised an arm to signal them to hold still and the next moment all four men were engulfed in the white light of the transporter. They were deposited at the foot of the Vorash Stargate and immediately the dry and hot air of the desert pervaded their senses.

"Why on earth did you put us down here?" asked Jack with an askance frown.

"Because..." began Harry, but was interupted when a single column of light appeared next to them and revealed Sam.

"Hey guys," waved Sam nonchalantly.

"Have fun, Sam?" asked Harry wryly.

"Yeah," said Sam with twinkling eyes and a wide smile on her face.

"Ok..." said Jack uncertainly with a frown on his face, looking at the expression on his 2ICs face. "You were going to say..."

"...because it's rude to just appear in the Tok'ra's 'top secret' base," said Harry in an obvious tone, "how would you feel if any race allied with Earth could just appear in the middle of the briefing room when they felt like it?"

"Ahh," said Jack with an air of enlightenment.

The group of five walked the now familiar path towards where the Tok'ra would meet them and sure enough they were 'mock ambushed' by a Tok'ra party that had concealed themselves under the sand. Their identities ascertained, they were escorted to the set of concealed rings. Jacob Carter was waiting for them.

"Harry," nodded Selmak/Jacob.

"Greetings Selmak, is everything ready for your departure?"

"All is ready," confirmed the Tok'ra Leader.

"You merely need send the co'ordinates of your cargo to my wife in the ship marked _Briseus_, there is no need for Rings," instructed Harry.

"Very well," nodded Selmak and his head dipped. "Tanith is ready to be apprehended, we have finished with him," said Jacob, nodding to Teal'C. The group stood in the ring perimeter and a few moments later they appeared within the underground Tok'ra base, with the characteristic crystalline tunnel structure. It was either careful planning on the Tok'ra's part or sheer luck, that Tanith himself was waiting near the ring platform. And Harry got his first look at the Goa'uld double-agent; his host was a young man about Harry's age named Hebron, with an angular almost regal face and short brown hair. And while Harry could see that the Goa'uld was trying to project a veneer of fairness on Hebron's features, that it just couldn't conceal that slight gleam of malice in the eyes.

When Jack noticed the Goa'uld double agent, he of course, couldn't resist a gloating quip.

"Hey kids! We're not parked in the red zone are we?"

Harry, Jack, Teal'C and Jacob walked down a tunnel towards the conference room that contained Tanith, where he was being 'subtly' contained and monitered for the moment.

"Tanith was surprised to see us," commented Teal'C.

"Uh huh, we didn't want to give him any warning," said Jacob stridently.

"Doesn't suspect you're on to him?" asked Jack in concern.

"Not that we know of. We'll see soon enough when we apprise him of our exodus," said Jacob. "As useful as he's been, we can't take him with us to the new Tok'ra base."

"What will become of him?" asked Teal'C almost eagerly. Harry looked with a little concern at Teal'C. Not a few days ago he had gotten revenge on Chronus for the death of his father, now he was surely looking for revenge for the murder of his best female friend turned mistress, the Jaffa Priestess Shau'nac, whom Tanith had murdered in cold blood. Jaffa did have a rather martialistic warrior society of course, and revenge vendetta's were commonplace, but Teal'C's eagerness was worrying...Harry resolved to keep an extra eye on the stoic warrior.

"We have a little surprise planned," said Jacob in answer, as they arrived at the conference room, "shall we?" The group walked into the room and remained standing. Tanith was seated next to a female Tok'ra Harry recongnized as being the aide to the High Counsellor Persus. Persus' bodyguards were standing behind her...seemingly for her protection, but everyone knew it was to keep Tanith in check...except for Tanith, of course.

"Ambassador Harry, Colonel O'Neill, Teal'C," said the aide, "allow me to welcome you and SG1 back to Vorash. High Counsellor Persus sends his greetings."

"Always a pleasure," smirked Jack, while Teal'C and Harry merely bowed in answer.

"I must say, Colonel, I was most intrigued by your means of arrival," said Tanith expectantly. "I was not aware the Tau'ri had the capability to build such ships."

"As much as I wish we could take credit for those babies," said Jack, mock tragically, "they are the Ambassador's ships, but he kindly offered their use to us. It's a sweet ride, smooth as silk."

"Now that we have access to a mothership-class vessel," interrupted Selmak stoically, "we will be able to move our people and our Stargate as well and thereby establish a completely new and secure base."

"I don't understand," said Tanith with a genuine confused frown, "why have I been excluded from such important information?"

"The Tok'ra did not wish Apophis to be informed," said Teal'C with relish.

"We've been aware of your duplicity from the beginning," said Selmak coldly, "you deceived and then murdered the Jaffa Shau'nac. You took the host Hebron and you've been acting as a spy amongst us ever since."

"You have been used to channel disinformation to Apophis. He will be most displeased when he learns the truth," said Teal'C with a smirk.

"This is absurd," said Tanith, with a sigh and stood to leave, clearly not believing that he could have been deceived so thoroughly. Harry inwardly smirked...the Goa'uld and their ego. He was instantly surrounded by the Tok'ra who had been posing as the aide's bodyguards and zat guns were drawn. Tanith, seeing clearly that the game was up, turned to look at Teal'C and the Goa'uld's eyes glowed in anger.

"You will never escape," snarled Tanith, "the System Lords will hunt you to the ends of the Galaxy." With that he was escorted from the room by the two Tok'ra bodyguards.

"That guy is a living clichè," said Jack, shaking his head.

**On board the **_**Briseus**_

Jack O'Neill was walking with Jacob Carter along a corridor and couldn't help but try to compare this ship with the _Achilles_ or find the reason why Sam looked so...happy...after her time here and after a few moments gave up, they were seemingly identical. Jacob was sidetracked instructing a Tok'ra to move some equipment to another location on the ship.

"You'll have to take that to this secondary cargo hold," he pointed on a interactive map of the ship that the Tok'ra had with them, graciously provided by Apollonia. "We need room for the Stargate."

"Hey! Don't scuff the walls!" called Jack to the Tok'ra as they walked away, he turned to Jacob, "you guys better not be mucking around this ship."

"We're not mucking about, Jack," said Jacob dryly. "I still don't think it's really necessary for you to be here."

"Apollonia is a pregnant woman, and while her husband is on the surface coordinating the supply transfer, she can't exactly be keeping an eye on all you spies, now can she?" Jacob looked at Jack with an amused smile.

"Why thank you, Colonel," said a seductive voice from behind the two men, "I'm sure my husband appreciates your efforts." A beautifully radiant Apollonia stood behind them, this time wearing a royal blue version of her diaphonus robes. Jack was rather stupified for a moment by a combination of her beauty and the thought of her telling Harry that he was looking after her. Jacob, of course, was rather more mature about the near naked woman standing next to them.

"Apollonia, it is agreeable to see you again," said Selmak with a bow.

"I'm sure it is," said Apollonia knowingly. "I'm here to discuss a certain matter with you...I'm sure my husband did not offer the use of our ships lightly, so why then did I have to remove a hidden subspace transponder from one of the living quarters?" Jacob's eyes widened momentarily, and Jack smirked smugly at the former General turned Tok'ra.

"We make no apology for the action," said Selmak with a frown.

"Keep your friends close, heh?" said Jack shrewdly. Selmak's head dipped and turned control over to Jacob.

"I'll be blunt Jack, the Tok'ra High Council is very concerned," said the former General with a sigh, "Earth is in possession of a Ha'tak with its technologies being dissected, and now Harry shows up with these..." he gestured to the ship around them, "...which is clearly of Asgard technology or even beyond, and it's also at Earth's beck-and-call. A level of power...that I believe, Earth isn't ready for."

"Oh, and the Tok'ra and the Goa'uld gained their technology...how exactly?" asked Jack with raised eyebrows. He was referring to the fact that the majority of the technology the Goa'uld and Tok'ra has...were knowledge taken from other races.

"Yeah, but the Tok'ra were flying around space when most people on Earth still thought the planet was flat," retorted Jacob.

"In an ideal Universe," interjected Apollonia, "a race could be allowed to evolve naturally, as it was meant to be. But it's not an ideal Universe, Jacob Carter. Do you really think that Earth can just sit back a few thousand years and develop the technology naturally?" Jacob couldn't find much to counter that argument.

"I can't convince you to at least give up the Ha'tak once you're done examining it?" asked Jacob with a sigh.

"Not a chance," said Jack with a frown. "At that point, we'll still need time to build our own ships. It'll be the stopgap."

"This is me talking Jack, Jacob, not Selmak, you have no idea how dangerous that thing is."

"Hey!" said Jack growing irritated, "We were smart enough to steal it in the first place, which is more than the Tok'ra have been able to do."

"We don't operate that way," said Jacob.

"Well maybe it's time you took a more direct approach. The Tok'ra have been around for what, two thousand years? In all that time, how many System Lords have you taken down?" asked Jack archly.

"Oh yeah," said Jacob with a snort, "things have certainly gotten better out here since you started killing Goa'uld's one by one. Let's examine the results, in each case, more warlike Goa'ulds have stepped in to fill their place, there's more chaos than ever before. With the power Apophis now has we are on the brink of losing any chance of ever defeating the Goa'uld."

"That's rather hypocritical Jacob," said Apollonia, "since the Tau'ri have made their entrance into the Galaxy; Ra, Hathor, Anuk-su-namun, Seth, Sokar, Heru'er and Chronus have perished. Of those, only Ra, Hathor and Chronus have been killed solely by the Tau'ri, for Anuk-su-namun my husband claims responsibility. The rest have all been through Tok'ra involvement."

"Yeah, but our hand in them went undetected," retorted Jacob. "Our plan is more long term."

"What plan is this?" asked Jack in askance.

"Undermine the individual Goa'uld's power and keep them fighting amonst themselves until we have a way of eliminating them. Once and for all."

"Go on," said Jack expectantly.

"We're working on it Jack," said Jacob vaguely.

**Vorash...Tok'ra Base...**

Harry, Sam and the Tok'ra responsible for the evacuation stood in a supply room in the base. They watched as the last of the cargo containers were consumed in a flash of white light and transported to the _Briseus_.

"We've finished the loading of supplies," said Sam, "it's time to start transporting your people up."

"We will begin immediately," nodded the Tok'ra. It was at that moment that an alarm went off throughout the base.

"What the..." said Sam with a frown.

"That means an intruder is on base," said Harry with a frown. "But that would mean..." A barely winded Jacob came running towards them at full speed.

"Tanith's escaped."

"How?" asked Harry with a weary sigh rubbing the bridge of his nose.

"He threatened to kill the host Hebron then and there, before we would even get a chance at the extraction process," explained Jacob, "Tanith stopped Hebron's heart for a few moments and faked death, the Tok'ra entered and Tanith jumped them."

"Note to self: ask General Hammond to send some MPs along to train the Tok'ra in prisoner handling," said Harry with sarcasm.

A few minutes later, Teal'C, Harry, Jack and a pair of Tok'ra ringed out of the base to the Vorash surface, PR7s and zats and a staff weapon held ready. One of the two Tok'ra spoke into a communicator in Goa'uld as soon as the obsidian rings vanished into the ground.

"What's happening?" asked Jack, pointing to the angrily gesticulating Tok'ra, who was all but snarling commands into the small device.

"The snarky Tok'ra is the one responsible for base security, and he's rightly pissed off at his subordinates at the moment," said Harry, wincing at some of the language he was hearing.

The angry Tok'ra turned to Harry and in a more respectful tone spoke a few lines in Goa'uld.

"And now?" asked Jack.

"He is saying that Tanith could not have escaped through the Stargate," translated Teal'C this time, who was also looking furious and his jaw was flexing. "It has been heavily guarded the entire time."

"By the same guys who were guarding him in the first place?" asked Jack with a raised eyebrow, but turned quickly to the angry Tok'ra, "no offence." The Tok'ra merely nodded and began to bark more orders.

"He is out here somewhere," said Teal'C intensely, scanning the horizon of dunes and sand.

"Well he's boned without water," said Jack indifferently.

"The symbiote will sustain him for a considerable time," argued Teal'C.

"Big desert," retorted Jack.

"Allow me to end this," said Harry with a shake of the head. He raised his hand and an Asgard jewel device appeared...

"Oh, I like this part," said Jack rubbing his hands together, "get those zats ready boys," he instructed to the Tok'ra.

...Harry closed his eyes and the device started to glow in a near ethereal fashion...he instructed the _Achilles_ to look for any blended life sign on its own...there...Harry opened his eyes. "Here he comes."

There was a flash of white light and it resolved to show a startled Tanith, and most worryingly, holding a Goa'uld communication ball. Before the treacherous Goa'uld could even think of fleeing he was struck down by a zat blast from the Tok'ra Security Chief. Harry sighed and picked up the comm ball from the desert floor, after a few moments of examining it he turned grimly to the others.

"It seems Tanith was able to get a message off," revealed Harry, handing the ball to the Tok'ra Chief. "What it said, I don't know, but we can assume Vorash is no longer safe. Take that to Selmak, we need to think of a new plan." The Tok'ra Chief nodded and he grabbed Tanith's limp arm while his partner grabbed the other and headed to the Rings.

**Tok'ra Conference Room**...

Harry, Daniel and Jack walked into the room where Jacob and Sam were sitting across from each other, discussing something rather intently. When they saw the others enter the room they abruptly stopped and waited for the others to take their seats.

"It seems Harry's assumption has been proven correct," said Jacob solemnly, "we've received word from our operatives that Apophis has been given our location."

"Guess Tanith wanted to make up for all those months," said Daniel wryly.

"An attack fleet is being assembled as we speak."

"How many Ha'tak?" asked Harry with a frown.

"Our operatives estimate as many fourteen Ha'tak, and more than likely Apophis himself will show up in his Shalk'ra class flagship," said Jacob.

"Shalk...what?" asked Jack in confusion.

"Put three or four Ha'tak end to end and you've got an idea of its size," explained Jacob simply. "And we estimate the fleet will reach Vorash in less than a day."

"Ouch," winced Jack.

"Despite the _Achilles_' superior technology, there's no way I can defeat a fleet that size," stated Harry, shaking his head, but then his eyes narrowed. "And there's no way my wife is taking the _Briseus_ into combat."

"Don't worry," said Jacob disarmingly, "I wasn't going to ask. Sam and I have come up with a new plan. We will be sending our people through the Stargate instead to speed up the pace of the evacuation. The _Briseus_ can go to the new secure base as planned to deliver the supplies."

"If this plan works we may be able to wipe out a significant portion of Apophis' fleet in one shot," continued Sam, "Vorash is orbiting a regular main sequence star with a core temperature of about fifteen million degrees and enough hydrogen to burn for another five billion years."

"Yeah, so?" said Jack.

"We wanna blow it up," said Jacob. Harry's eyes widened in astonishment. The Ancients had also dabbled in celestial engineering, reigniting dead stars, building energy collector grids around suns, terraforming planets, even shifting a planet's orbit further away from their companion stars to allow for the right conditions for life to flourish. The sheer technological and logistical might required was staggering...but the Tok'ra, not to mention Earth was eons away from achieving that. But clearly Sam had thought of some way to achieve it.

"Wow," said Jack, blinking.

"That's..err.." said Daniel, stuttering.

"Ambitious," chorused the two men.

"Every star is a delicate balance between the explosive force of the fusion going on in it's core which tends to want to blow it apart and the gravitational force of it's mass which tends to want to crush it into a little ball. Now if we could disrupt that balance by suddenly removing some of the star's mass we could create an artificial supernova. The blast wave would expand at nearly the speed of light. It would destroy everything in this system within a matter of minutes."

"How do you propose to remove some of the star's mass?" asked Harry with a curious frown. "There's no way you could reach in with a transporter beam, the radiation density would make achieving a lock on anything within the star's corona impossible."

"I wasn't thinking of the transporter," said Sam, beginning to look sheepish. "Well, this is going to sound a little crazy but we dial P3W 451, its the planet where we encountered the black hole."

Harry blinked at hearing that, his mind whirring through mental calculations.

"The energy from a black hole would sustain a subspace path indefinitely, and the gravitational attraction would be translated through the wormhole...you're going to fling a Stargate from the _Achilles' _into a sun?" asked Harry, surmising Sam's plan. It was simplistic genius at its best. And something the Ancients nor the Asgard would ever think of.

"Yeah," said Sam, looking nervous.

"The gate would have to enclosed in a force field to partially shield the relativistic effects of the black hole, and fitted with a small guidance rocket," added Jacob.

"The sun's gravity should pull it in, the force field will disintergrate and stellar matter will be sucked through that wormhole like water through a firehouse," explained Sam.

"The Gate will last for about twenty minutes in those conditions," stated Harry factually, having recalled some Ancient knowledge from the Inifinite Universe on Stargate durability.

"Excuse me," piped up Daniel,"but wasn't the Gate on P3W 451 sucked into the black hole a long time ago."

"Not necessarily," said Sam in deep thought, "that planet was probably ripped to pieces but it could take years for that matter to spiral into the event horizon, especially given the time distortion."

"Either way, we'll know as soon as we try to dial out, if we can't establish a connection, we abort the plan and get the hell out of there," said Jacob. "It's your ship, Harry, and your decision whether we try this. The Tok'ra High Council has already given its approval."

"Are there any other planets in this system?" asked Harry.

"No," said Jacob shaking his head, "there's only Vorash, and it's a dead desert planet that's wandered out of the zone of life. There's no chance we are destroying the chance for a species to evolve naturally in the future by doing this."

"Very well, let's do it."

**Achilles...**

Daniel, Teal'C and Jacob walked gingerly onto the Bridge of the Achilles. Teal'C was carrying a circular stasis jar under his arm and within was the Goa'uld Tanith; Harry had used the same Transporter extraction process as he did with Osiris, and the last person to walk through the Vorash Stargate was a newly freed Hebron, giving his undying thanks to Harry and SG1 for freeing him.

Harry was already seated on the Control Chair.

"Fascinating," said Jacob, looking around him and at the Control Chair with slight awe.

"The Stargate has been beamed into the port side cargo bay, Sam is already busy equipping it," reported Harry with a faraway look in his eyes, as his mind received data and reports from the ship AI.

They looked to their starboard side where the _Briseus_ was keeping station...Harry seemed to nod at it...and the next moment the huge ship banked in a high speed turn and vanished into the purple swirl of Hyperspace.

"Setting course for the sun," stated Harry, and the _Achilles_, banked into its own turn and accellerated to maximum sublight thrust...0.6 of light speed. "My long range sensors are picking up the Goa'uld attack fleet...they'll be here in 68 minutes."

A holographic screen appeared a few meters in front of the Control Chair, showing a sideview of Sam and Jack in the cargo bay control room. The controls of the cargo bay were standard touchpad keys and as such, could be changed to display buttons in English as well as Ancient...so Sam had no problems.

"The timing has to be precise," said Sam towards the visual sensor that was picking up her image, "Harry, once we're close enough to the sun, slow to five percent light speed, then I'll release the Gate. That should give us more than enough time to get away."

"How much advanced warning will Apophis have?" asked Jack.

"They won't be able to detect the Gate on their screens," said Jacob in answer, "and they won't know the planet is deserted until they're in orbit. By then it will be too late."

Anxious minutes passed as the sun grew in size on the omnidirectional view from the Bridge...the computer had automatically place a filter over the image to prevent the bright light from blinding everyone. Twenty minutes ticked by.

"Ok, Sam, I've slowed to five percent light speed, we're in position," said Harry.

"Cargo bay's gravity generators at maximum," reported Sam, "initiating remote dailout sequence." Another visual sensor feed came on this time showing the Naquadah Black Stargate as its inner wheel spun and locked in coordinates, and as such an anxious twenty seconds passed as the Gate tried to establish a wormhole directly to a black hole. Sam then visibly let out a relieved breath as the kawoosh effect was seen and a subspace path was established. "It worked. The Gate on P3W 451 is still active. Engaging force field." The Gate was then encased in a blue haze that emerged around it like a fog. Sam exhaled and shook herself.

"Something wrong?" said Jack nonchalantly.

"No," said Sam stridently, "I've just never blown up a star before."

"Well they say the first ones always the hardest," said Jack in an enigmatic tone. She looked at him strangely. "They say that."

"Opening cargo bay doors," said Sam. Those on the bridge watched as the curved doors smoothly opened to reveal the bright sun beyond dominating the view. "Releasing clamps," the clamps at the base of the Stargate retracted and gate was suspended within the gravity field inside the cargo bay. The small retro rocket on the one side fired giving the Gate momentum and it began spinning like a very slowly flicked coin and navigated itself out of the cargo bay, "the Gate is away." The Stargate fired another rocket to arrest its spinning motion and that was when the sun's gravity started to draw the freely floating object toward it like a lion grabbing its meal.

"Gate trajectory is on course," said Harry with narrowed eyes, watching the Gate drifting towards the sun. "Alright time to go." The _Achilles_ was about to bank away from the sun to jump into Hyperspace when his AI screamed a warning in his mind. The shields were raised just in time to stop the energy torpedo attack from an Alkesh bomber that had decloaked.

"What the hell?" said Jack as the ship had a slight jolt from the attack.

"We are under attack," said Harry simply as the Alkesh continued its strafing run over the main length of the ship. The shields absorbed it rather easily and it merely caused a few shudders to run through the ship. "Stupid," said Harry with a sigh. With hardly any warning the _Achilles_ retaliated. The emitter ring around the ship glowed a bright yellow for a moment and it seemed to condence onto a point...and a beam of yellow energy lanced out towards the frantically rolling and diving Alkesh. Its manuevering was futile as the beam hit with deadly precision, going through the shields of the Alkesh like they werent ever there...a relatively small explosion punctuated its death as it was scattered into its constituent atoms.

"Cool," said Jack, who had apparently watched a visual feed that Sam displayed for him.

"Apophis can't be here already can he?" asked Daniel.

"It's too early," said Jacob shaking his head. "I think that might have been Tanith's ride we just destroyed. He probably had it waiting in a nearby system and contacted it before he could be apprehended again."

"So, are we leaving now?" asked Jack.

"Yes, but I first want to release a stealth drone," said Harry in thought, "so we can get confirmation on the results of the supernova."

"Good idea," said Sam with a grin. Their attention was drawn to movement as from the upper part of the saucer section a small tube opened and what looked like a yellow star streaked out at high speed...a few moments later the drone changed color to mimick the void of space and vanished.

"Jumping to Hyperspace," said Harry with a satisfied grin. The world around the bridge swirled with purple and blue energy and a few moments later they were cruising down the long tunnel of blue subspace that rolled passed them with rapid waves of energy.

Half an hour later, with Jack and Sam, now also on the bridge, they watched the sensor and visual feed from the Vorash System. The fleet of Goa'uld attack vessels appeared a few lightminutes away from Vorash itself, including the large Shalk'ra class vessel.

"Apophis is there," said Jacob with relief.

"Predicted supernova event in...three...two...one...now..." said Harry expectantly, looking at the sensor feeds. For a moment...there was nothing, then...

"Supernova is forming!" exclaimed Sam. The drone was in a perfect position to capture the advancing wall of plasma and stellar matter that obliterated Ha'tak after Ha'tak.

"Come on!" said Jack in encouragement. "Toast that snakehead's ass!"

However, that was were good fortune and surprise was lost. Apophis was furthest away from the advancing Supernova...and as such had time to react...the Shalk'ra turned to point past the drone and it zipped into Hyperspace window that had formed just a few thousand kilometers away from the drone. Jack let out a string of curses that would have made a sailor blush. Teal'C merely dropped his head in disappointment.

"Damn!" said Jacob in anger.

"So close," muttered Sam

None of them understood though why Harry suddenly began to laugh. And laugh he did, until tears were coming out of his eyes.

"Hey, what's the joke?" asked Jack angrily. "Let us in on it too, so that we can laugh."

"Hahahahaha, Oh, I'm sorry, wheee, I should explain myself," chuckled Harry and snorted and had another bout of histerics.

"Hey!" shouted Jack.

"Oh, right, sorry, it's just that," Harry shook his head with a wide smile on his face, "Apophis clearly forgot to read his Hyperdrive safety manual."

"They have manuals?" asked Jack.

"No, it's just that, Apophis opened a Hyperspace window within the direct vicinity of an expanding Supernova," said Harry looking with twinkling mirth filled eyes at Sam, who also seemed to get it but apparently didn't find whatever it was funny enough.

"Explain it please for those of us not versed in astrophysics," said Daniel wryly.

"Well, a ship opening a Hyperspace window has to a use an energy reserve to do it," explained Sam, "conceivably, the larger this reserve, the faster and further you can go."

"So?" said Jack looking clueless.

"So, Apophis opened a Hyperspace window with not only his own ship's energy, but also that of the supernova, that's a near immeasurable amount of energy," said Harry with a grin. "My AI estimates that his ship just travelled nearly four million light years...on a trajectory..." he stared towards one side of the bridge where a holographic screen came up. "That places him within the Ida Galaxy...I guess I'll have to give Thor a call and tell him to pay a little visit to Apophis."

"What will the Asgard do with him?" asked Teal'C.

"He's in a very big mothership," said Harry with a lopsided grin, "the Asgard will view it as an accidental invasion...and deal with it."

"Goodbye Apophis," said Jack, with a big grin on his face.

A week later, Harry came with the confirmation...Apophis had been killed.

_A/N: Long Chapter. Whew. I've written this with WordPad because my MSOffice has been acting up. Hopefully I can get the new Office2007 soon_. _Wordpad has no spellcheck, though I did a manual spellcheck, I'll've probably missed a few errors, so excuse me for the bad spelling in those cases. _


	15. Chapter 15

_**Chapter Fifteen - Reborn**_

**High Earth Orbit - Achilles...**

The bridge of the Achilles was filled with a tense excitement and anticipation. Harry was seated in the Control Chair with his fingers contemplatively tented under his chin. To his left, on a first visit to the ship, was General Hammond, who looked like he still had to get used to the huge space that was the bridge. Major Davis was also present, standing nervously next to the General and his eyes rigidly focused on a point somewhere on the huge blue marble of Earth. Harry doubted that Major Davis suffered from vertigo but he was clearly uncomfortable on the panoramic bridge. Looking much more comfortable was Daniel who was leaning against the Control Chair to Harry's right.

"What's their ETA?" asked Hammond.

"The squadron should have launched about ten minutes ago," said Major Davis. "I guess the pilots wanted to see how they handle in atmospheric manuevering before they leave Earth."

"I just hope everything goes right for this shakedown run," said Hammond grimly. "I sincerely hope we don't have a twelve-fold X301 incident."

"The X302 performed excellently when Colonel O'Neill did its test flight a week ago," said Harry stoically, "there should be no problems."

"From your mouth to God's ears, Ambassador," replied Hammond in turn. Harry turned his head to one side and in his mind's eye saw the sensor feed from the _Achilles_' sensors.

"Here they come," reported Harry, pointing down towards the Earth below them. Twelve indistinct shapes had appeared and were approaching with extreme velocity. As the shapes drew closer it became possible to distinguish them in more detail; each approaching craft had the same distinctive C-shape of a Goa'uld Death Glider; however, these did not have the curved lines of a Glider, but was more angular in design, resembling almost the old F117 stealth fighter. Instead of having the twin cannons on the wings, these craft had multiple hardpoints where anti-fighter and anti-Ha'tak missiles were mounted. The anti-Ha'tak missiles was a culmination of multiple technologies; the chassis of an Exocet missile had a shield modulator on the nose, they contained weapons-grade naquadah and a seperate amount of potassium, which at detonation would give enough energy to theoretically vaporize a Stargate. The main dogfight weapon of the X302 was officially labelled the PC2 (Plasma Cannon) a three meter weapon located on the bow directly underneath the pilot module, but what gave it the edge over a Death Glider was the fact that the PC2 was almost fully articulated; using a system borrowed from the Commanche helicopter, the PC2 followed the direction and orientation of the pilot's head, so it didn't matter whether the pilot had to get his nose pointed to the target, he just turned his head toward it and blasted away.

The X302 was colored in an obsidian black, making it extremely hard for an eye to spot the craft. Even the cockpit canopy was specially treated to stop it from reflecting the glare of any star or nearby lights. Inertial dampening systems protected the pilot from the gravitational forces of extreme speeds. The X302 had a next gen Naquadah Matrix Power plant which provided power for propulsion of a combination of gravitic engine (for space flight) and scramjet(for atmospheric flight) and of course, the crowning achievement of the scientists at A51, the miniaturized Hyperspace Window Generator. The X302 could reach Abydos (the closest planet with a Stargate) in a day with a spot Hyperspace jump; if the pilot wanted to go further and faster though he would have to shut down all weapons systems and the gravitic engine and build up an energy reserve to use for the Hyperspace flight.

The squadron of 12 X-302s left Earth and swooped towards the _Achilles _in perfect formation.

"_Achilles_, this is Red Leader," came the smug voice of Jack O'Neill, flying the lead X302. Harry rolled his eyes at the reference to Star Wars. Jack was flying the lead X302 with Sam as his second seat. While Teal'C flew wingman with one of the best new pilots to come out of the secret X302 training program, Major Cameron Mitchell.

"Red Leader, this is _Achilles_," said Harry, engaging the subspace channel. "You're looking good and my sensors detect no problems with any craft in the squadron."

"Roger that, _Achilles_," said Jack, "requesting permission for Hyperspace roundabout the Solar system." Harry nodded towards General Hammond.

"Red Group," said General Hammond, "I want to say something profound and memorable on this occasion, where for the first time in almost five years we have a fighting chance against the Goa'uld, but all I have for you is this...you are the tip of the spear that we will drive into the heart of the monster, do Earth proud. Red Group, you have a go for Hyperspace. God speed."

"All right, boys, you heard the man," said Jack over the squadron frequency. The twelve X302s turned as one into an exit vector and in front of the fighters twelve small swirls of purple energy appeared and the next moment they dived into Hyperspace and vanished from sight.

The next day Harry was alone on the _Achilles_, which was still in Earth orbit and relaxing on one of the soft lazyboy chairs in one of the VIP suites. He had spent most of the time going over the data from the X302 flights and noting any problems or anomalies which would have to be fixed before the X302s took to the heavens again. He swirled his drink of mango juice absentmindedly, content to just watch the liquid and clear his mind of all the data he had reviewed.

His blissfully content mind was rather rudely interupted, however. The Achilles AI intruded on his thoughts and told him that remote subspace transponder 01 had been activated. Harry's mind went from near relaxed to racing beyond Hyperspeed. He nimbly jumped to his feet and instructed the AI to beam him to the medical ward. Harry was consumed in white light and when the world had righted itself around him he was in the medical ward of the _Achilles_.

The Medical ward was a large hall sized room with extremely bright white walls and lights with multiple slab like beds lining the perimeter of the room. The beds themselves did all the healing work using the original Ancient healing technology that the Goa'uld Sarcophogus was based on, this didn't require doctors to be present. Harry looked around and with a thought the room began to change. The beds retreated into the walls and a single healing bed appeared in the centre of the room.

Harry sighed and shook his head, trying to brace himself for what he was about to see.

"Transport him," said Harry aloud to the AI.

The next moment a column of white light descended from the ceiling and landed on the bed.

The light slowly faded.

Harry reflexively closed his eyes and gritted his teeth at the sight on the bed. On the Healing bed, dressed in mangled black robes that was torn in places, was the clone of Harry Potter. The clone's face was riddled with bleeding cuts of various depths and from the looks of it, had both his legs purposely broken as well. But Harry knew that this was just the beginning, he opened his eyes and mind to the Universe and felt the residue of destructive alteration matrixes' or as the wizarding world would call them 'curses'. The most prominent being the Cruciatus, which was still affecting the nervous system of clone Harry, hence the reason for the state of unconsciouness. Harry's eyes were drawn to the bruises and cuts around the wrists, indicative of imprisonment.

Harry activated the healing bed and it glowed white for a moment underneath the body of clone Harry. The diagnosis was grim. Malnourishment was another problem added to the list, and the clone's mind was in a near depressive state. Harry touched the brow of the clone and drew his hand away as if scalded. It seemed that Dementor exposure was another malady afflicting the young clone. All this combined to cause the coma that Harry was now detecting. The torture, imprisonment, malnourishment, and Dementor exposure was just too much to suffer. Harry was rather amazed that his clone was still clinging to life, most others would have been killed from treatment such as this.

With a thought Harry activated the full healing function of the bed and a brilliant white light rose up from underneath the clone. For ten minutes the pure healing energy worked and finally it retreated and disappeared back into the bed. The physical injuries were now healed, but the curses and dementor exposure was another matter entirely and it remained uncertain whether the clone would retain his sanity.

However, Harry could spare no time to treat his clone. It would take weeks to accomplish anything, and even then it was doubtful the clone would ever make a full recovery. This was the sign that Oma Desala had spoken of. He was needed in the wizarding world.

It was time to end this, and for that, he would need more _time_.

Having placed his clone in a stasis pod that would preserve him near indefinitely, Harry walked with purpose and determination onto the bridge of the _Achilles_ and sat down in the Control Chair. With a thought he activated subspace communications and a few moments later a holographic screen appeared in front of him. The smiling face of Apollonia appeared in view, with the lush background of Seaworld rather prominent in the feed as well...she was probably in one of the beach huts.

"_Husband_," she said in greeting.

"_Wife_," said Harry with a fond smile. "_How are you and your passengers faring?_"

"_Well enough_," she said, patting her belly fondly. "_Mornings are tough though_." Harry grimaced inwardly, how the Ancients never invented something to get rid of morning sickness for pregnant women he would never understand. He vividly recalled the time when his wife had a rather unexpected bout of the condition and accidently threw up all over his feet. Apollonia however lost the happy expression on her face as she saw the expression in his eyes. "_What is wrong_?"

"_My clone on Earth is in critical condition_," said Harry shortly. Apollonia understood what this meant as well as he did.

"_Then it is time_," she said with sadness and resignation.

"_Yes_," said Harry with a nod. "_However, I will return before your due date. I will be there_."

"_You can't guarantee that, my husband_," said Apollonia with a rue smile. "_It is three months before I am due to give birth, not to mention the possibility for a premature delivery. And do you really think you can kill Riddle in just three months?"_

"_I know, I know_," said Harry with a sigh, "_I will try, however. If I have to turn the wizarding world upside down and shake it to find and dispose of Riddle to return to you before then...I will do so_." Apollonia laughed briefly.

"_It's times such as this when you remind me why I married you," _she said fondly.

"_You just like my cooking_," said Harry teasingly. Apollonia clicked her tongue with irritation.

"_No, you lump_," she scolded, "_besides the fact that I love you, you have this...stubborn determination to always do the right thing_."

Harry couldn't say much in return so he let his blush speak for him. "_Anyway, I hate to impose on you, but I'll need you to see to any calls from the SGC. Perhaps see if Sam can't stay with you for a while, in case of the baby being premature_."

"_I understand_," nodded Apollonia.

"_Well, I have more preparations to make before I return to Earth_," said Harry with a sigh, "_I love you, my wife_."

"_And I love you, my husband_."

Harry stood again in the Medical ward, where a circular stasis pod now stood in the middle of the room. CloneHarry was now clothed in white garments within the pod and looked quite peaceful at first glance. Harry knew though that underneath the exterior it was a whole different story.

Harry took a deep breath in and out, and opened his mind to the Universe...he cast his perceptions forward...reaching toward the mind of CloneHarry...there was hardly any resistance on the surface (confirming that the consciousness had retreated deep within the recesses of the mind in an attempt to protect itself)...Harry penetrated into the mind softly, like a gentle breeze...he was looking for the divergent memories of the past eleven years that seperated the Harry from his clone...it was extremely difficult focusing on a coherent pattern in his search...CloneHarry's mind was a mess...Harry cast about trying different avenues of approach in the endless dimensions of the mind...searching...and then...he found something...

_...CloneHarry being sorted in Ravenclaw House...the first view of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry...Harry was rather impressed at the construction of the school, but obviously he had seen much more impressive Ancient architecture._

_...CloneHarry was somehow entered into a magical tournament between two other wizardry schools...the betrayal of a friend...the sheer fright of confronting a dragon...later having to rescue a friend from the bottom of a lake...then tackling a final challenge...the memory ended abruptly._

_...CloneHarry entered his second year...no post from friends...a house-elf intercepting his mail...visiting his best friend in Ravenclaw, Hermione Granger, a studius witch, for a few weeks...visiting Diagon Alley...the strange attacks on Hogwarts students...including his best friend Hermione...his sheer desperation to save her and solve the mystery...discovering his Parseltongue ability...finding the Chamber of Secrets...confronting the Horcrux of Tom Riddle..._

_...in first year...challenging the way magic was perceived and done...why was a wand even necessary...why was magic taught and studied in such a near haphazard fashion...confronting the disembodied spectre of Tom Riddle...getting past the obstacles guarding the Philosopher's Stone. Why wouldn't Dumbledore answer the question of the reason Riddle tried to kill Harry?_

_...third year...a prisoner had escaped from Azkaban...Sirius Black...he was coming after CloneHarry, everyone said so...he was a mass murderer of non-magicals...he was responsible for revealing his parents hiding place to Riddle...the sheer betrayal and rage at learning that Sirius Black was his father's best friend and his godfather...Dementors...learning a Patronus Charm...the struggle to overcome his need to hear his parents voices...the night of the full moon...everyone had it wrong...Sirius was innocent...Pettigrew was the traitor!...capturing Pettigrew...fighting Professor Snape, and Lupin the werewolf...revealing to a dumbfounded Minister of Magic a very much alive Pettigrew...Sirius is freed!_

_...confronting the fake Mad-Eye Moody in fourth year...Barty Crouch Junior...being tied to a gravestone by Alecto Carrow...they steal CloneHarry's blood! Riddle rises into full life again!_

_...fifth year...CloneHarry is nearly ignored by Dumbledore...nothing is revealed to him...learning useless Occlumency lessons from Snape...the dreams of what Riddle desires...refusing to learn from Snape...sneaking into the Restricted Section...learning Occlumency on his own...confronting the useless Ministry of Magic...Delores Umbridge...Fudge...confronting Dumbledore in anger..._

_...deaths...kidnappings...torture!...Sirius is killed in battle!._

_...sixth year...suspicions of Draco Malfoy...Quidditch Captain...a failed romance with Ginevra Weasley...the hunt for the horcruxes...the Death Eater attack on Hogwarts...Slughorn...Dumbledore and CloneHarry fights back to back in a Death Eater ambush...successfully defend Hogwarts from a Death Eater incursion...fighting the triple agent traitor Snape...Snape was the one who told the prophecy to Riddle!...Dumbledore injured gravely and is bedridden..._

_...seventh year...leaving with Hermione and Neville Longbottom on a Horcrux hunt despite objections from everyone...falling in love with Hermione ...learning ...training ...fighting ...searching the British Isles and Europe...vampires...werewolves...apprenticing under a Nicolas Flamel who trained Harry as his last act alive..._

_...for four years...fighting an ever desperate war while still trying to find the Horcruxes...the Ring of Slytherin destroyed...Tom Riddle's diary destroyed...Hufflepuff's Cup destroyed...Ravenclaw's Quill destroyed...Slytherin's Locket yet to be found...Nagini the snake would have to die before Riddle did...the final piece of the seven split soul._

_...a massive Dark army attacks Hogwarts...Riddle himself leading it...fighting Riddle...he's too strong...CloneHarry cannot beat him...captured...torture...ARRRRGGHHHH!_

Harry pulled away the instant he realized the scream was coming from his own throat. The memories were horrible, the emotions associated with them...even more horrible. The last one of CloneHarry's imprisonment was nigh unbearable and it rose dark emotions within that was a struggle for Harry to control. There was no time to walk back to his living quarters for meditation. Harry sank down into a lotus position and immediately began the process to internalise and make sense of eleven years of jumbled memories.

Harry emerged from his meditation to find himself still seated on the floor of the Medical Ward on board the _Achilles_. A mental consult with the AI told him he had been in meditation for nearly two days and his growling empty stomach seemed to affirm this fact. A white light materialized next to him and revealed a plate of steaming hot food, which he promptly grabbed and began wolfing down. He finished his meal and the dishes vanished.

Harry stood and had to stretch out the stiffness in his muscles for a while before moving forward and placing a hand on the still humming stasis pod.

"How did you manage to do all that and still stay sane?" asked Harry with a weary sigh. "Don't worry, rest now. You are safe. I will take the torch from here."

Harry vanished with a flash of white light.

**Earth, England**...**a week later**...

Hermione Granger walked in a daze, with her best friend Neville Longbottom a few steps behind her, watching her back. Her long, bushy brown hair tied into a ponytail which was buffeted by a light, chilly breeze. Her eyes were drawn in dark circles from lack of sleep and her grey robes were creased and dirty from use. Neville was a tall man who stood a head-height above her, with broad shoulders that was drawn in and slumped, brown messy short hair and hazel eyes that scanned the horizon around them for any threat. His similar grey robes was also patched and worn with use, the only thing looking new and in good repair was dragonhide boots that adorned his feet.

Both witch and wizard had their wands out and ready for anything. With but a thought they both apparated.

After the squeezing feeling passed Hermione could smell salt in the air and hear the rushing of waves, which caused her to look up and regard her surroundings properly. She looked out at a moonlit sea and star-strewn sky, and for a moment thought she saw a satellite swooping fast overhead. Her head lowered to see that she was now standing upon a high outcrop of dark rock, water foaming and churning below her. She glanced over her shoulder. A towering cliff stood behind, a sheer drop, black and faceless. A few large chunks of rock, such as one upon which she and Neville were standing, looked as though they had broken away from the cliff face at some point in the past. It was a bleak harsh view; the sea and the rock unveiled by any tree or sweep of grass or sand.

"Are you sure Dumbledore gave us the right co-ordinates?" said Neville stoically.

"Yes, this is the place apparently where Tom Riddle brought his youthful victims," said Hermione darkly.

"To think they brought orphan's here," said Neville shaking his head in disbelief.

"Not here precisely," countered Hermione, "there is a village of sorts halfway along the cliffs behind us. According to Dumbledore the orphans were taken there for a little sea air and a view of the waves. Riddle would have climbed down over there," Hermione pointed, "probably used his childhood understanding of magic to make the climb a little easier. He brought two small children with him, probably for the pleasure of terrorizing them. The journey on the sheer cliff would have done it alone. But our final destination is ahead."

"Are you sure about this?"

"Dumbledore let me visit his memory in a Pensieve, of this place when he first found it," said Hermione, getting irritated.

"I wonder why he and Harry never tried to get the you-know-what in there?" murmured Neville.

"The Death Eater incursion into Hogwarts interupted their attempt back in sixth year," answered Hermione. "Then the war took on a life on its own, you know the rest."

Hermione beckoned Neville to the edge of the rock, where a series of jagged niches that made footholds led down to boulders that lay half-submerged in water and closer to the cliff. It was a treacherous descent and the two moved slowly to avoid the possibility of slipping and possibly injuring themselves. The lower rocks were slippery with sea water. They could feel flecks of cold salt spray hitting their faces. She raised her wand. '_Lumos_'," she murmured, as she reached the boulder closest to the cliff face.

A thousand flecks of golden light sparkled upon the dark surface of the water a few feet below where they crouched; the black wall of rock beside was also illuminated. Hermione held her wand higher and it revealed a fissure in the cliff into which dark water was swirling.

"We'll have to take the plunge it seems," said Hermione with a sigh. Neville groaned in complaint but didn't verbally object. They both slid from the boulder they were on and landed in the sea and began to swim. Hermione with breaststroke and Neville with a sloppy freestyle. She held her lit wand in her teeth to keep the area in front of them illuminated. The water was icy, and their robes became waterlogged and weighed them down.

They swam and the fissure soon opened into a dark tunnel that they could tell would be filled with water at high tide. The slimy walls were barely three feet apart and glimmered like wet tar in the passing light of Hermione's wand. A little way in, the passageway curved to the left and they saw that it extended far into the cliff. They continued to swim, their benumbed fingers occasionally grabbing onto wet rock to sped their way faster.

Finally, they emerged out of the water, their hair and robes gleaming with wetness in the gold light from the wand. They found steps that led into a large cave. They climbed the steps shivering. Hermione pointed her wand at herself and the icy water evaporated instantly and she dry as a bone, another spell later and Neville was also dry. Eventually they were standing in the middle of the cave, both their wands held high, examining the walls and ceiling.

Hermione waved her wand and a slight mist came floating out of it and streamed along the walls...the mist began to turn various shades of colours.

"This is definitely the place, there's magic residue everywhere..." murmured Hermione.

Anything she was about to say further was cut off as her Magic Mist abruptly vanished and a strong breeze started to fill the cave.

"I've got a bad feeling about this," said Neville ominously. Both wizard and witch moved with signs of long experience and stood back to back, their wands raised, mentally preparing an arsenal of spells to unleash with but a thought and a point of the wand. The breeze continued to build in strength until from the ceiling of the cave a bright white light descended that glowed with such strength that it near blinded the both of them in contrast to the darkness their eyes were used to. The mass of white light settled on the cave floor in front of them and began to take a human like shape.

Hermione, thinking that this was part of the cave's defenses that protected the Horcrux, pointed her wand and began to unleash spells...Neville joining her not a moment later. The being of white light raised what looked like a long staff of light and before any of their spells could connect a cage like dome shield appeared and harmlessly absorbed the attacking spells. Hermione felt near oppressive levels of magic begin to pervade the cave and the next thing she knew her wand was burning and in a reflex she would later kick herself for, let go of it and it sped towards the being of light...Neville's wand following not a moment later.

Hermione and Neville felt desperation as they tried to think of anything to do...but...there was nothing...

"Oh, how dependant you are on these crude devices," came a disappointed sounding voice from the being of light. This confused Hermione...was the being referring to their wands? "You came here to seek the piece of the soul of Tom Riddle," stated the being.

Neville finding his courage spoke up in defiance, "Oh yeah, and what of it? What is it to you?"

"What is it to me?" asked the being, as if amused by the question. "It is my purpose."

"Who are you?" asked Hermione in anger.

"Me?" asked the being again. "I'm not really sure...it's rather difficult to explain to ones with such limited knowledge of the grand scheme of things."

"What?" asked Neville in bafflement and confusion, looking at Hermione.

"You both knew me," said the being, the white light still glaring in their eyes, "I know I should know you, but I don't."

"Stop talking in riddles and show yourself," snarled Hermione. The being seemed to take heed of the command, as the bright light surrounding the figure slowly faded. It resolved to show a tall, rather muscular man, wearing intricately styled purple robes, with a tall staff in his right hand made out of a black obsidian material and a glowing diamond like jewel inset as a headpiece. Long black hair cascaded down his head and reached his shoulders. It was as Hermione studied the more curious aspects of the strange wizard's appearance that she felt her heart shoot up into her throat and seemingly lodge itself in her asophagus. Green eyes like two hardened emeralds stared over both her and Neville and the familiar features of a face that tantalizingly haunted her dreams at night. A slight breeze from the entrance to the cave parted the fringe of the wizard slightly to reveal the jagged lightning bolt shape of a curse scar on his forehead.

Hermione fainted.

Neville grabbed the limp form of the witch before she could hurt herself and stared at Harry Potter in a combination of awe and fright.

"You died," said Neville in a near whisper that pervaded the cave.

"That I did, Neville Longbottom," said Harry, walking forward slowly and staring at the woman his other self was in love with.

"Voldemort publicly executed you in Diagon Alley," said Neville, shaking his head as though to convince himself that Harry was an apparition of their imagination.

"And what did you see Neville Longbottom," retorted Harry walking closer, "a curse of some vague description apparently hitting me and then I was vaporized into white light." Neville couldn't help but nod. Harry couldn't help but marvel at his timing in beaming out CloneHarry and putting the event in motion for that scene using a little time jump. "I barely remember it. I barely remember you or Hermione or any of the others." Neville shook his head in confusion and turned to face Hermione, trying to lightly shake her awake. "Allow me," said Harry and Neville flinched as Harry bent over and lightly caressed and cupped Hermione's cheek, willing her to wake with his Ancient skills.

She gasped and opened her eyes. Harry abruptly got out of her field of view, Neville would do better to calm her down.

"Neville?" she said, her voice small and unsure.

"Yes, Hermione?" said Neville uncertainly.

"It wasn't a dream, was it?"

"No." Hermione began to sob and tears began to fall. For a long time, Neville just cradled her and allowed her to sob into his robes. In the meantime, Neville was staring at Harry who merely looked enigmatic at what was essentially his girlfriend being embraced by his best friend. The next thing Neville knew, Hermione had launched herself at Harry and began to pummel his chest in anger.

"You bastard! How could you let me believe you were dead!" screamed Hermione incoherently, and continued on it that vein for a while. Harry merely stood stock still and absorbed the blows without a concern in the world, looking hardly phased at all. Finally, Hermione ran out of steam and fell to the floor in an exhausted huff.

"Are you done?" asked Harry, with mild irritation in his voice. Harry drew on his memories from his clone. "You always assumed things Hermione and jumped to conclusions before they could be properly explained to you.**I did die**, Hermione."

"But if one dies...how can you be here then?" she demanded. "It's impossible."

"Can you honestly claim to know how Fate and the greater Universe works?" asked Harry in anger, slamming his staff into the ground. Harry would have to be very careful here, because he was in essence working with a less advanced society, and his explanations and actions would ripple out for hundreds of years to come among wizards. "I died. The curtain of this existence was pulled back, and what I beheld was beyond human understanding and comprehension. I became more than a wizard...more than human...this plane of existence we are currently in is but the beginning of the great journey!" Neville and Hermione was stunned speechless at Harry's words. "I lived another lifetime in a mere week since my death and it is beyond words...but, I had a task to fulfill on this Earth, and so I've been sent back until my task is done."

"Even if we believed all this," said Neville with a frown, "how do...

"How do you know I'm not a Death Eater, impersonating Harry Potter?" said Harry with a frown. "That's simple, do you think a Death Eater would have power like mine? Riddle would never let someone so powerful (a potential rival) be in his ranks. We could sit here in this mouldy cave for one hour to rule out Polyjuice Potion. I'll allow Hermione her wand back to check me for glamours, you can ask me anything only Harry Potter would've known, though you'll forgive me if I have a somewhat slow recall, it was another lifetime ago, after all."

Harry dropped Hermione's wand at her feet and walked a few steps away and sat down with his legs folded, and resting his staff on his lap.

Hermione hesitantly picked up her wand and walked towards Harry carefully, who merely stared inscrutibly at her. She waved her wand over the form of her 'apparent' lover mentally sending a simple _'Finite'_. Nothing happened. She started to practically bathe Harry in every form of dispelling and disenchantment she knew. Nothing happened. Frustrated she put her wand in her wrist holster, and began firing personal questions at Harry. Unfailingly, though it seemed to take him a few moments for each answer, Harry answered correctly.

Before Hermione knew it, an hour was up, Harry had drunk or eaten nothing...no Polyjuice.

She sat with a huff and shook her head, continuously mumbling, "It's not possible, it's not possible..."

"Are you satisfied?" asked Harry airily, with a slightly bored expression on his face.

"Merlin," said Neville, shaking his head, "you've convinced me...but...I still don't understand how you can be back."

"It is as I said," said Harry patiently, "I was hit with the curse, I died, but it was not the end, I left the burden of my life, I had done everything possible against Riddle in my previous incarnation...I was at peace for the first time and what was beyond death was...wonderful." Neville continued to look lost. "Have you read or heard an account of Merlin's death?"

Neville's mind seemed to latch on to the familiar knowledge and his eyes widened. "My Grams told me an old story from the Founders time. It said Merlin stood amongst the four founders looking frail and old beyond his years...he gave them their final blessing, fell down and before they could even begin to take his body for burial it was consumed with white light and vanished...my Grams told me that as a bed time story."

"That's a mere myth," said Hermione with a frown. "There is no way that that can be historically accurate."

"All myths and legends began as truth," said Harry enigmatically, "I will say this...that this plane of existence is just one of many infinite layers above and below. That it is within all of us to move beyond just as Merlin did." Hermione shook her head again, seemingly not accepting it. "I apologize if I have rather knocked the logical order with which you understand the world around, but you did ask, and I answered truthfully. I am Harry Potter, yet not the Harry Potter that you knew. I understand that you were lovers with the other Harry, and you can't accept the strangers' eyes that stare out of his eyes."

Hermione gasped in astonishment, was she that plain to read? Her Occlumency was flawless, yet this man, this Harry, had read her as if he had known her all along, and yet he fully admitted that he didn't really know her...her mind just could not accept that apparent paradox.

"Hermione," said Neville softly, putting a comforting hand on her shoulder. "I think, we should continue with what we came here for. I'm satisfied that he is at least Harry Potter and an ally..."

"...but..."

"Hermione, magic is not logical," said Neville with a sigh, "your muggle upbringing has helped you a lot, and your knowledge makes you powerful...but your weakness is that you don't trust to instinct, you don't have a concept that some things in the wizarding world even defy understanding by wizards...you are so focused on the trees that you forget it is a forest. At least that what my Gram says when I think too hard about my magic. My instincts tell me that this is Harry Potter, that like Merlin, he has returned in a dark time of great need. And you have to admit, that the one thing that will galvanize the Resistance would be if Harry was to return."

Hermione hung her head and tears began to fall again and her shoulder shook in sobs that she near visciously silenced.

After a few moments Harry stood from his seated position, and awaited Hermione's acceptance or denial...the latter would be disappointing, as it would mean she had no hope of eventual Ascension.

She raised her head and with near miserable eyes asked, "Do you at least remember my love for you?"

Harry closed his eyes as the bittersweet memories from his other self prompted a longing to rise in his heart and an infinite sadness. "I do." She wiped her crying eyes furiously and visibly tried to master herself.

"There's at least that, then," said Hermione in a listless voice, "and for the record," her voice gaining a slight strength, "I know that there is more to magic than spellbooks and logic. It's just...it sounds so...outlandish on the face of it."

"As outlandish as a Chamber of Secrets?" said Neville with a slight grin on his face, "all the teachers and countless historians over the centuries denounced it as myth...yet Harry goes and shows it to be plain truth." Hermione turned rather hesistantly to face Harry properly, as if she was afraid he might be a spectre and vanish if she looked at him properly.

"Did it hurt much to die?" she asked in a small voice. Harry recalled the final memories of his other self and added his own twist.

"No, it was rather much of a relief at that point," replied Harry with a sigh. "I'll rather leave it to your imagination at what Riddle did to me before that final moment in Diagon Alley." Both Neville and Hermione winced at the mere thought. "But I believe we cannot spend much more time here, time is something I do not have the luxury of anymore and you must do what you came for."

"Right," nodded Neville but frowned, "hey, but aren't you going to help us? I mean, those are Voldemort's traps we'll have to face before we can get the Horcrux."

"Are you asking me to help?" asked Harry with a raised eyebrow. Hermione and Neville looked at each other in exasperation.

"Yes!" they chorused together.

"Very well," said Harry simply and turned around, his staff clanking on the floor as he walked forward in the cave. Neville and Hermione hurried to follow. Harry approached the wall of the cave and his hand began to caress it with his fingertips. He felt the matrixes of embedded spells within the walls and muttered in Ancient under his breath as he recognized each matrix and began to piece them together in their function. Harry began to walk along the cave's perimeter, touching as much of the rock as he could to identify each spell...he was trying to find the linking lattice that anchored all of the matrixes and kept them fixed and permanent. He ran his hand back and forth until finally he found it.

"Here," he said, "this should be a doorway. The entrance is concealed."

"How did you figure that out?" asked Neville in bewilderment.

"It's called 'Mage sense' in the ancient texts, I prefer to view it as simply using my entire body as an eye to the true Universe beyond the surface of the material world," explained Harry, as he stepped back from the cave wall, and hit his staff into the ground, focusing his mind...the diamond in the headpiece of the staff began to glow with white light that seemed to focus itself at the rock. For a moment, an arched outline appeared there, blazing white as though there was a powerful light behind the crack.

"You can actually use that staff?" asked Hermione with wide eyes.

"Of course," said Harry, as though it was obvious, "do you think I carry it around for my health? Or for decoration?"

"Then you have to be really powerful like Merlin to be able to use a staff," said Neville with amazement.

"I couldn't say whether I'm more powerful or less than Merlin," said Harry with a shrug, "Haven't met him yet, though I believe he would wipe the floor with me if it ever came to a friendly duel. And that's nonsense about you not being powerful enough to use a staff...anybody with the capability to use a wand can use a staff, of course, you'd need to develop a certain mental capacity before you use it, otherwise you'd blow yourself up with the first spell cast. Not to mention that the early Ministry perpetuated the idea that only Merlin could wield a staff."

"Maybe because a staff was rather visible, and that was when wizards began to hide themselves from the non-magical, a wand is more handy and can be hidden," theorized Hermione.

"Yes, that is one reason," said Harry, "now I need to concentrate if I want to get this doorway open..." Harry was staring at the old runic text that made up the spells of the archway; he knew he must have looked rather stupid, just staring at the wall as the spells were only visible to his own eyes. When Harry finally realized the nature of the doorway he chuckled.

"Really, Riddle is that the best you can do," murmured Harry, shaking his head.

"What is it?" asked Neville.

"The doorway requires payment before we are allowed to pass," said Harry with a grin.

"What kind of payment?" asked Hermione wearily.

"Blood."

"_Blood?" _said Neville in disgust.

"Yeah, not much imagination does Tommy boy have," said Harry mockingly. "The idea was probably that any enemy must weaken himself or herself to enter." He frowned in thought for a moment and stared behind him at Neville and Hermione speculatively. "I would donate some of my own blood to open the door, but...I'd rather not chance how the enchantments would react to my presence."

Neville sighed, "I'll do it." Neville flicked his wand and a rather large old fashioned razor was conjured, so that it sticked out of the tip of the wand. He winced and flashed the razor over his arm with the cut directed to the doorway, there was a spurt of scarlet droplets that peppered the rock face ahead of them. Hermione had her wand out in an instant and waved it over his arm, muttering a healing charm and the deep cut was gone.

"Thank you," nodded Harry. "Ah, that did it!"

The blazing silver outline of an arch had appeared in the wall once more, and this time it did not fade away: the blood spattered rock within it simply vanished, leaving an opening into what seemed total darkness.

"Follow me," said Harry and he walked through the archway with Neville and Hermione on his heels, lighting their own wands hastily as they went.

An eerie sight met their eyes; they were standing on the edge of a great black lake, so vast that Harry could not make out the distant banks, in a cavern so high that the ceiling, too, was out of sight. Clearly the interior of the original cave was not that great, but Riddle had altered the dimensions of the interior to give it that ominous grandure. A misty greenish light shone far away in what looked like the middle of the lake; it was reflected in the unnaturally still water below. The greenish glow and the light from the two wands were the only things that broke the otherwise velvety darkness.

"Let's walk carefully forward," instructed Harry, "follow in my footsteps and do not touch the water."

"What's wrong with it?" asked Neville.

"It's has some form of enchantment on it, that is keeping it absolutely still, almost like a mirror...there is a reason for that," said Harry, beginning to walk carefully forward, his staff ticking lightly on the hard ground.

"If anything disturbs the water something will be activated then..." said Hermione, following in Harry's wake. "...but what?"

"I'd rather not test that water and find out," said Harry grimly. They set off around the edge of the lake. Their footsteps made echoing, slapping sounds on the narrow rim of rock that surrounded the water. On and on they walked, but the view did not vary: on one side of them, the rough cavern wall; on the other, the boundless expanse of smooth, glassy blackness, in the very middle of which was that green glow. The utter silence of the place was clearly beginning to unnerve Neville.

"Uhh...this might be a stupid suggestion, but why don't we just summon the Horcrux?"

Harry stopped for a moment, to consider this...drawing from the memories of his other self about Riddle...would he simply assume a wizard would think it a stupid idea to simply summon it and not put any protection against it. "Anything's possible," said Harry with a grin. "One of you give it a try."

Hermione and Neville looked at each other, the latter who gestured for her to do the honors. She held her wand aloft and mentally sent a Summoning Charm for the Horcrux.

With a noise like an explosion, something very large and pale erupted out of the dark water some twenty feet away; Harry noticed the rotting flesh, a flash of a diseased and bloated face, then it vanished again with a crashing splash that made great, deep ripples on the mirrored surface. Neville and Hermione leapt backwards in shock and hit the wall. Harry frowned in thought. Riddle had used a specific frequency of power to animate the dead body of a person to his bidding, it was a corrupted form of the Ancient healing technique that was used on the non-magical dead...it seemed that that knowledge had persevered or been rediscovered.

"_Inferi_," murmured Hermione in fear.

"If any part of us had touched the water, we would be assaulted with a wave of the undead?" asked Neville, to which Harry only nodded. "So where's the Horcrux?"

"In the middle," said Harry, and pointed to the misty green light in the centre of the lake.

"That means there has to be a way to cross it," said Hermione in thought.

"It is what I am seeking," confirmed Harry, and kept walking until..."Here we are," and he stopped along a seemingly ordinary part of the lake. Harry felt the hidden spell matrix not by the spell itself, but by the effect of the spell...light was being distorted in an unnatural pattern around something.

"I don't see anything," said Hermione. Harry raised his hand and felt through the thin air towards the lake, as though expecting to grip something invisible. His hand abruptly seized on something. His staff came slightly forward and the diamond pulsed briefly with an inner light and immediately a thick coppery green chain appeared out of thin air, extending from the depths of the water into Harry's clenched hand. Another pulse of light came from the staff, and it began to slide through his fist like a snake, coiling itself on the ground with a clinking sound that echoed noisily off the rocky walls, pulling something from the depths of the black water.

Neville and Hermione gasped as the ghostly prow of a tiny boat broke the surface, glowing as green as the chain, and floated, with barely a ripple, towards the place where Harry, Hermione and Neville stood.

"Do you think this boat is safe?" asked Hermione with a frown, "I mean...it's _Voldemort'_s boat."

"Well, Riddle would need to cross the lake without attracting the attention of the Inferi, since he can't exercise control over more than a few of them at a time," explained Harry, "he would want to eventually visit his Horcrux to renew the enchantments around here or perhaps remove it to another location if he learned this one was compromised."

"So the Inferi won't touch us if we crossed in Riddle's boat?" asked Neville hopefully.

"At some point, they will inevitably realize we are not Tom Riddle," said Harry with a grim smile, "there are more enchantments ahead, that Riddle made so that only he could penetrate it, we will see."

"I don't think that will hold all three of us," said Hermione, staring uncertainly at the eerie looking boat, which was quite small. "It looks like it was built for only one." Harry stood carefully closer and placed a hand on the rusty surface of the boat.

"It will only allow one wizard at a time to pass over the surface of the lake," said Harry, closing his eyes and focusing on the matrixes he was sensing, "it measures magical power and will sink if more than one wizard tries to climb in."

"So what do we do?" asked Neville. "Going across one at a time comes to mind."

"Riddle would most definitely not go back and forth across the lake in quick succession," said Harry in thought, "that would trigger the Inferi to attack us."

"So only one of us gets to go across," stated Neville.

"I doubt that Tom Riddle ever thought a wizard like me would come across one of his Horcruxes," said Harry with a smirk. "I have a way for all three of us to get there, but one of you must go on the boat." Hermione and Neville looked at each other uncertainly.

"My turn," said Hermione resolutely.

"You sure?" She nodded.

Harry stood aside and Hermione climbed carefully into the boat. She sat uncomfortably on the hard steel hull and she gasped as the boat began to move at once towards the distant green light.

"Neville, come stand behind my back," instructed Harry, Neville nervously did so until there was barely an inch between them. "That's fine, now, hold on to me around my chest." Harry raised his arms to allow Neville to lock his arms in a monkey grip. "Do not be startled." Harry focused his will and projected a disc of power under their feet...a few moments later as he checked its consistency, with a thought he and Neville rose into the air.

"Whoah!" exclaimed Neville in alarm, looking down in near disbelief at how they were now hovering three meters in the air over the glassy black surface of the lake. Harry turned and they began to move forward in pace with the boat. Below them Hermione looked in fascination at the slight glow of the ethereal disc underneath the two wizards' feet. She shook her head in amazement and was startled as she saw another, as yet lifeless, Inferi floating in the water.

"I assume you both know how to deal with Inferi," stated Harry, as they floated along on air and water.

"Conjure flames and ward them off," said Hermione from below.

"Yes," nodded Harry, "I think that if the time comes, that task will go to you both, while I deanimate them. Though I hope to avoid triggering them at all."

"Harry, only the wizard that animated them can do that..." said Hermione.

"Always with you, what can't be done," chided Harry, channeling Jack and quoting from Star Wars. She huffed in irritation, turning her head to look at the greenish glow towards which the boat was still inexorably sailing. The greenish light seemed to be growing larger, and within minutes, the boat came to a halt, and Harry and Neville touched down on a small island of smooth rock in the centre of the lake. They both helped Hermione out of the boat, being careful not to disturb the water. The island was no larger than one the VIP suites on the _Achilles_; an expanse of flat dark stone on which stood nothing but the source of the green light. Neville and Hermione willed their wands brighter and the true nature of the light became apparent.

It was coming from a stone basin, which almost looked like a Pensieve, which was set on top of an ornately curved pedestal. Harry approached it and his two companions followed in his wake. Side by side they looked down into it. The basin was full of an emerald liquid emitting a phosphorescent glow.

"I've never seen or read of a potion such as this," said Hermione, looking troubled. "It has no characteristic I'm familiar with."

"Well, I've seen the phosphorescent glow come from certain plants which have sedation properties," mumbled Neville in thought. Harry stared at the basin itself and lightly ran a hand along its curve.

"Anything?" she asked of Harry.

"There is a barrier spell that prevents the potion from being touched," said Harry and in demonstration, tried to put his hand in and was stopped an inch above the surface. Neville also tried but his fingers encounted nothing but what seemed to be solid and inflexible air. Harry took a step back and there was a solid thump as the base of his staff hit the ground. "Do not move, I'm going to try sort out the enchantments on this." He closed his eyes and the large diamond headpiece started to glow with too many colours to count, the mutliple tendrils of light began to tentatively snake out towards the stone basin until they were rolling, diving, descending and ascending over it. For two minutes, this continued, Harry muttering in Ancient under his breath.

Finally, the multiple tendrils of light receded back into the headpiece of Harry's staff and disappeared.

"There's something not right here," said Harry, opening his eyes and staring at the glowing green basin.

"What is it?" asked Neville in concern.

"All magic leaves traces," said Harry with a frown, "each wizard who performs magic has their own unique...fingerprint, if you will, each wizard channels magic through his mind in a unique way. This entire cave," he said, staring around at the large dimensionally expanded lake and cave ceiling, "radiates with that signature."

"So? It's most likely Riddle's signature, why is that significant?" asked Hermione, when Harry remained silent.

"Because this potion in the basin," said Harry gesturing to it, "was also brewed by Riddle if what I'm reading is right, but...I'm detecting another unique wizard's magic signature somewhere in the depths of this potion."

"You're saying we're not the first wizards since Riddle to visit this place after he finished constructing it?" asked Neville. Harry nodded, looking troubled at the implications.

"Ok, we're getting ahead of ourselves," said Hermione, "one step at a time, lets first get the Horcrux and most likely this mystery will be illuminated futher then. I assume that the Horcrux is in the potion itself?"

"It appears on the surface that way from my search," confirmed Harry.

"And what wards did you find on the potion stopping us from getting it?"

"We've seen the one that stops us from touching it," he said, "we can't vanish, part, scoop or siphon the potion, nor can we transfigure, charm, or otherwise make it change its nature."

"That only leaves..." said Hermione in thought, and then her face blanched, "drinking."

"We can't drink that," said Neville aghast, pointing at the sinister looking potion.

Harry held up his hand and flicked his fingers, a moment later in his open hand appeared a stainless steel cup. He approached the stone basin.

"Harry, NO!" shrilled Hermione.

"I'm not going to drink this, Hermione," reassured Harry, "I'm just going to test your theory..." He dipped the steel cup and it penetrated the barrier and was partially immersed the potion, he lifted it again and came away with half a cup of the eerie potion. He swirled it a bit to check its viscosity and then promptly chucked the potion back into the stone basin and the cup vanished in his hand with a strange white light. "Now this is rather clever of Riddle, this potion has to be drunk to reveal what's beneath it. If we simply try to empty the basin with a cup it will refill itself continuously. If I'd hazard a guess this potion is a personalized Enfeeblement draught, only Riddle can drink this and come to no harm, hence the reason why his magical signature is so strongly radiating from the potion."

"That's a seriously impressive Potion's skill," commented Hermione.

"Indeed," was all Harry said to that. "But again, Riddle couldn't know someone with my power would ever come along...so..." He opened the palm of his hand and this time a slightly glowing, purple glass pyramid appeared in his hand.

"What is that?" said Hermione in curiosity.

"The closest analogy that you would understand is something like a Portkey," said Harry with a smirk, he let his staff lean on his shoulder and opened his other hand and another steel cup appeared in it. He dropped the glass pyramid inside the cup and once again penetrated the invisible barrier with it. The cup was immersed and Hermione saw how the glass pyramid swirled around inside and then Harry tipped over the cup completely and the glass pyramid disappeared within the depths of the potion. Harry pulled out the cup and it vanished again. "Where do you think it would be safest to dump this potion?"

"In the ocean outside," said Hermione, "but Harry, I thought we couldn't vanish the potion."

"I am not vanishing it..." he grinned, "the glass pyramid is a magical beacon, it will allow me to focus a special spell just on the potion itself...something Riddle never could have foreseen to protect against...nor does he have the knowledge of it," He took his staff in his right hand again and it started to glow, this time with a white ethereal light...there was suddenly a _whooshing _sound and the green potion was engulfed with bright white light that lit a good portion of the cave interior and then the white light shot up seemingly into the ceiling and vanished.

Hermione looked at Harry in awe, "That was Teleportation..."

"You know of it?" asked Harry sharply.

"I'll explain later," said Hermione with an impatient wave of her hand and bent over the now empty stone basin. Lying innocuously at the bottom was a golden locket. "Oh no!" she moaned.

"What is it?" asked Neville.

"That isn't the Horcrux," she said staring at the piece of jewelery. "Dumbledore showed me all the memories of them he showed you Harry...do you remember?"

"Yes...there should be an ornate 'S' on its surface to mark it as Slytherin's," said Harry, "this one is also too small." He reached carefully into the stone basin and touched the locket with a finger...nothing happened...his hand closed around the locket and brought it out of the basin. "It also radiates the signature of that other wizard I sensed." Harry thumbed the small button on the side that would open it and a fragment of parchment was revealed. He flattened it in his hand and read aloud to Neville and Hermione:

**To the Dark Lord**

**I know I will be dead long before you read this**

**but I want you to know that it was I who discovered your secret.**

**I have stolen the real Horcrux and intend to destroy it as soon as I can.**

**I face death in the hope that when you meet your match,**

**you will be mortal once more.**

**R.A.B.**

"Well, I guess this R.A.B. wizard beat us to it," said Harry with a snarl and handed the note to Hermione; who stared at it as if trying to see through it.

"Who could R.A.B. be?" said Neville.

"I would need to consult a geneology in the library at Resistance HQ to be sure," murmured Hermione, she waved her wand over the parchment and after casting a few spells, "this parchment was written in the late seventies, during Voldemort's first reign of terror."

"And it has to be a Death Eater," reasoned Neville, "only a Death Eater would call Riddle 'the Dark Lord'."

"That'll certainly help narrow the search," said Hermione in satisfaction pocketing the note. "So, R.A.B., an active Death Eater during the seventies, one who probably betrayed Riddle and was hunted down, well...we'll see."

"Are we done here then?"

"I don't see anything else we can do," said Harry and turned around away from the stone basin and also pocketed the fake locket. The two men helped Hermione back into the boat and it promptly turned its prow a hundred and eighty degrees and headed back in the direction from whence it came. Harry and Neville once again took to the air and after a few minutes returned they returned to the edge of the lake. The instant Hermione left the boat, the coiled chain hooked itself against the cave wall and twirled itself around the tip of the prow and it began to sink once more back into the depths of the lake. The chain became taught and promptly vanished again.

Harry took the lead again and they walked the long journey back towards the stone archway. Neville again volunteered to open it with his blood, and the doorway opened instantly after receiving its tribute. They walked into the ante-chamber cave and the archway disappeared behind them.

"I think before I return to Resistance HQ with you that some things need to be discussed," said Harry stoically, "we can perhaps go and find a cosy place in the village nearby."

Hermione considered this and nodded. "OK." To avoid another dip in the icy water, Hermione joined Neville and they were airborne on another disc of power that Harry conjured under his feet. They landed on some solid ground just outside the fissure. "Hold tight on my arms," instructed Harry.

"Are you going to side-along Apparate both of us?" asked Neville in astonishment.

"Something like that," said Harry with a grin, and with a barely a sound two wizards and a witch disappeared.

Three cloaked and hooded figures walked into the local Dover Inn. It was an old brickwork three floor building that rented rooms on a nightly basis for a relatively expensive fee, considering the state of the rooms you got in return; they were small, only had a single bed and a black and white Television with a rickety chair in each, but since it was the only Inn in the small village it didn't leave travellers much choice. The manager of the Inn, a balding burly middle-aged man with a grim appearance and a huge moustache, eyed the strange figures as they entered the front door of the Inn, various tables dotted the floorspace which was occupied with patrons eating meager meals served from the small kitchen and and on one side a bar held its share of drunken patrons.

The moment the lead figure approached him though, he seemed to get a slight glaze over his eyes and he totally forgot about the three strangely dressed figures and only focused on the fact that they were potential customers.

"Can 'ey 'elp ye?" he said gruffly.

"Yes, we'd like a room for the night," said the lead figure in a pleasant voice.

"Tha'd be fifty," said the manager. The money was before him on the desk before he could blink and it was pocketed, he reached back to a board of wood with nails hammered into them and on each hung a numbered key. "You're 'n 'umber four," handing the key to the stranger.

"Thank you," said the stranger, and the three figures silently walked through the tables, where the patrons eating immediately lost all interest in the strangely dressed people and went back to their meals. The three headed up the stairs and turned down a narrow hallway and approached a door marked with a loosely hanging number 4. The figure didn't even bother with the key and a 'click' was heard from the lock and the door swung open on its own.

Harry pulled open his hood and flared his cloak slightly to free his arms and switch on the light. Neville closed the door behind them and placed a Locking and Imperturble Charm on it. Hermione also had her wand out and was scanning the room for anything suspicious and casting various wards and charms to prevent sound and many other forms of eavesdropping. She also cast a Perimeter Alarm ward that would alert her if anyone magical approached the Inn.

"I think that should do it," said Hermione.

"It's good work," praised Harry, looking around at the room using his 'mage sense.' He was leaning against the wall, preferring to let Neville take the single chair in the room and Hermione sat on the bed with a tired sigh. "I need to know what happened after I was captured in the battle for Hogwarts." It had happened four months ago, well, relatively speaking, according to the memories of CloneHarry. With Dumbledore bedridden due to a Curse no one knew to counter, the then Headmistress McGonagall had no chance. Riddle and his full might of Death Eaters, Dementors, Giants, and Werewolves had stormed the weakened wards of Hogwarts that was still anchored to the ailing Dumbledore. The battle that followed was the greatest of the War so far. But the enemy was too many. The Ministry was in all but name under Riddle's control anyhow. And any Auror-in-exile came too late. CloneHarry had confronted Voldemort directly in this battle, and a titanic battle it was. The best that could be hoped for was that Harry would kill Voldemort and then continue the Horcrux hunt to finally finish the madman. But CloneHarry was beaten and captured. This was the last memories of the strategic situation that the real Harry Potter had.

"Well," said Hermione, looking grim, "we at first had to retreat and scatter all over the country. Neville and I had the job of getting Dumbledore out of Hogwarts. He asked me for some reason to shrink his entire personal library before we left."

"The Order of the Phoenix also had various 'doomsday scenario' tasks to do before we abandoned Hogwarts," said Neville. "They packed up the Restricted Section and spirited it out of Hogwarts. Left various deadly traps in key locations that we didn't want the Death Eaters to get at too easily, places like the Room of Requirement or Moaning Myrtle's Bathroom and so forth."

"The house-elves were also convinced to follow the Order," said Hermione in turn, "so at least they're not making it easy for the Death Eaters to make a base out of Hogwarts. Latest intelligence we heard said that Severus Snape himself is in charge there."

"Typical," muttered Harry in disgust, his memories of Severus Snape made a hot anger and rage fester in his heart.

"Since Hogwarts fell," said Hermione in sadness, "British wizarding society has all but become stagnant and isolated. Diagon Alley and Gringotts is almost the only things left running, but Riddle has his fingers everywhere. Any shop that wants to remain open has to pay tribute to him or face a pack of Death Eaters burning it down. The Goblins have remarkably remained somewhat neutral in the whole disaster although that is only the front they present to Riddle. There are a contingent of Goblins in Resistance HQ who report to us on any financial movement in Death Eater accounts and if any artifacts are removed or deposited."

"That's rather unprescedented," said Harry raising his eyebrows in surprise. It was rare for Goblins to agree with wizards on anything.

"They realize with Riddle running the show their profits have plummeted," said Neville with a grin, "it's their finances that keeps the Resistance going."

"The Auror's in exile have reformed their organization within Resistance HQ," explained Hermione, "they go on nearly daily raids on any tip they can find on Death Eater, Werewolf and Vampire locations."

"Do they catch them or is it more appropriate to call Aurors' Hitwizards these days?" asked Harry with a raised eyebrow.

"They only capture when it's believed they are going after a Death Eater with valuable information," said Hermione grimly, "otherwise," she mimicked a slashing of the throat.

"I see," said Harry unperturbed, he had to know whether to act as a soldier or a policeman, guess it would have to be the former. "And how is Albus doing?"

"Madam Pomfrey has him in Resistance HQ under near constant medical observation," said Neville.

"They still don't know what curse he was hit with, only its effects," said Hermione wringing her hands in frustration, "he can't walk, his powers have been blocked, and it's a struggle for him to eat food. Pomfrey thinks that if we don't get a counter-curse within a year it will be too late for him." Harry dreaded asking the following question but it had to be done.

"Who did we loose when Hogwarts fell and since then?"

Neville and Hermione looked at each other with inner pain written over their faces and with dread turned to face Harry.

"McGonagall," said Neville shortly. "She was AKd by Snape."

"Another he'll have to answer for," said Harry viciously, "continue..."

"Dean Thomas, died fighting a werewolf pack," said Hermione.

"Mrs Weasley, Percy and Ron," said Neville, "when they sacked the Burrow." Harry started at that, Mrs Weasley was a kind plumpy woman who was as close to a mother figure the other Harry had had. Percy and Ron had been his least favorite Weasley brothers after he had made friends with the Weasley twins, Fred and George, in first year.

"About five Aurors have died since Hogwarts fell," said Hermione in thought, "none that we knew personally, but their morale as a whole is shot, and we can't keep losing them at this rate."

"Is there any good news?" asked Harry in exasperation.

"Well, besides you coming back from the dead,now," said Neville in thought, "what are the numbers?" he asked Hermione.

"Ten Vampires destroyed, thirty Dark Werewolves killed, that's roughly four packs, three captured Death Eaters, and six killed...all since Hogwarts fell," she reported factually.

"You've at least won some battles," said Harry with a frown, "but you're not winning the war."

"Tell us something we don't know Harry," said Hermione with sarcasm and frustration, "if you tally all those under Riddle's command, he's hopelessly outnumbered when viewed against all the witches and wizards in Britian and the Continent. But your average Joe Wizard and Jane Witch is so petrified with fear that they won't come forward and fight for their own bloody country!"

"That is because they can't see who is on their side," said Harry easily, "all that they see is Voldemort, standing at the head of a dark army, and if they don't obey his call, the Dark Mark will be floating over their houses the next day."

"Well, we're the secret Resistance, Harry, we can't exactly advertise ourselves for recruits," said Neville in objection, "we can't risk another traitor or double-agent in our midst."

"I agree," said Harry patiently, "but hit-and-run tactics on Death Eaters can only get you so far...but I'm getting ahead of myself, it's better we discussed my plan with the entire Resistance."

"Plan?" asked Hermione.

"You didn't think I came back blindly did you," said Harry with a smirk. "I have a plan, or at least, the rough outline of one. And the first step will be for me to cure Dumbledore."

"You think you can do it?" she asked archly.

"If I cannot, then no one can, at least on this plane of existence, anyway."

**Glastonbury, Somerset, England... **

Glastonbury Tor is a large teardrop shaped hill with an elevation from the Summerland Meadow plains around it at nearly 158 meters. It's only architectural feature is on the summit, St. Michael's Tower; the remains of an old church that survived until the Dissolution of Monasteries in 1539 when King Henry VIII ordered that all the properties of monastic institutions be seized in the English Reformation. St Michael's Tower today was restored to modern standards to allow tourists to safely examine and walk through medieval archway at the base of the Tower.

The Tower was roughly twenty eight meters from its base to the highest ramparts, it was a prime example of old medieval architecture; it had a square footprint on the earth, square pillars, arched windows that hadn't seen glass in centuries and the stonework was a dull earth brown and splotches of white calcification from exposure to the elements over the centuries were splattered all over. Since it was late evening there were no tourists and the area was still as a graveyard. The green lawn around the Tower had the first twinkles of dew on them and was visible in the half-moon that hung overhead.

From the archway that ran through the base of a tower was a meticuously maintained path that snaked all the way down the tall hill towards the entrance of Glastonbury Tor. It was on this path, merely a few meters from the archway that Harry, Hermione and Neville appeared, again hooded and cloaked. It was his companions turn to lead as they escorted Harry towards the archway and into the Tower itself, his staff tapping in rhythym to his steps.

Harry looked up at the dilapidated Tower looming above and around him and turned to Hermione with a raised eyebrow.

"How do we get in?"

"Oh, I forgot," said Hermione, reaching into the pockets of her robes and handing Harry a small roll of parchment.

"Fidelius Charm?" asked Harry waving the roll. She nodded and he opened the parchment, it read:

**The Headquarters of the Resistance is in the tunnels under Glastonbury Tor.**

It was written in the familiar penmanship of Dumbledore, so Harry could only assume that his old mentor was still able to be the subject for such complex spells as the Fidelius, which was a hopeful sign. As he looked up he was shocked to say the least. There right in front of him on the ground directly under the centre of the Tower, was a Ring Platform, the unmistakeable Naquadah obsidian ring was indented in the ground somewhat. Hermione walked over to one of the nearby walls and pulled back on an old section of the wall that had revealed itself, and there was the nine keypad button controls, marked in Ancient.

"How did Dumbledore find this place?" asked Harry lightly.

"It was in an old handwritten book in his personal library," explained Hermione, "he thinks it was Merlin's journal, but there's no way to be sure, it's written in very old English in some parts of it and in another language I've never seen or heard of before." Harry was willing to bet the _Achilles_ that it was written in Ancient. "Anyway, to get in we have to stand within the circle and we will be teleported into the tunnels below. I find it rather odd though that if Merlin built this ring portal that this control pad would be styled in this fashion, it's almost Muggle in design."

Neville walked forward to step within the circle and Harry followed a moment later.

Harry would have to be very careful now. If the Resistance had set themselves up in a hidden outpost of Merlin's then he would have to be very careful not to appear too knowledgeable of the Alteran devices that would no doubt be within. Hermione pressed a sequence of buttons that chimed with every push. She pushed the section of wall back and ran towards the ring platform and joined them with the ring perimeter.

There was a whooshing sound and one by one, the black obsidian rings shot out of the ground and surrounded the three. There was a flash of white light. The rings descended into the ground and the night was still again. The Ring platform vanished and no indication was left that two wizards and a witch had just used an Ancient Ring Platform to vanish into the hidden tunnels below.

A_/N: There we have it...Harry's finally back in the wizarding world, and what a dystopian world it is. There are Gandalf the White reappearance story elements when Harry shows himself to Hermione and Neville; I recognize that and do not claim it as my own or being original. Star Wars belongs to George Lucas and not me_.


	16. Chapter 16

_**Chapter 16 – Reflections**_

**Resistance HQ, Glastonbury Tor…**

Albus Dumbledore stared rather listlessly at the book clutched in his weathered old hands; the knowledge the book held was seemingly heading towards his mind and crashing to the ground before it could even reach his eyes. He was partially sitting up on a multitude of pillows that had been propped up under his back by Poppy, to allow him to hold a book with minimal effort on his own part. Tearing his eyes away from the book he stared around at his somewhat meager surroundings; the comfortable bed he was in was against the brown stone earth that made up the tunnels under Glastonbury Tor, the room he was in was fashioned out of the original tunnels by the Goblins. His personal library sat right next to his bed in the form of two large bookshelves; every morning when Poppy Pomfrey (the Healer-in-Chief of the Resistance) did her checkup of his condition she would kindly ask which books to remove from the shelf and place them on his bed for easy access. A single carpet lay out on the floor, and some of his favorite tapestries hung on the natural cavelike walls to give the room a more homely feeling.

He put down the uninteresting book on Dark Curse Recognition, he had read it a hundred times, and it had not helped to identify the curse that was placed on his person by Augustus Rookwood; the ex-Head of the Department of Mysteries and Death Eater; in that fateful battle where Severus had rather disappointingly thrown his final lot in with Voldemort. He resisted the urge to dwell on that failure and turned his eyes to the book that had held his fascination for more than half-a-century since he discovered it (now that was a story by itself). Albus picked up Merlin's Journal and opened the book to the first page…the seemingly indecipherable text glared out at his mind like the other book failed to do; the script itself was in orderly lines from top to bottom produced with seemingly inhuman precision, it was made up of endless configurations of squares and rectangles that made him wonder if Merlin was a fanatic for mathematics and geometry. Though it was clear, judging from the repeated characters, that this script did have a formal alphabet…but the phonetic associations and the meaning behind that was lost to time and with Merlin himself.

Albus closed the book with a tired sigh. He had no idea what he was hoping to find by keeping up his effort in deciphering the parts of the Journal written in this mystery language, but he knew that Earth shattering revelations lay behind that complex text and perhaps a solution to the oppression he and the wizarding world found themselves in.

His mind next wandered to ask the question…_how had it all come to this?_

For him at least, it began when he himself was a fresh Hogwarts Graduate, he hardly even remembered the year…ah yes, 1868- the height of the Victorian Era and the globe spanning English Empire. Even back then he was considered a prodigy of magic, he had an uncanny mastery of Transfiguration and magic in general that even had Professor Marchbanks impressed. '_Done things with a wand I've never seen before,_' in her own words.

For the next thirty years he had been content to travel the world, furthering his own learning from various Masters of their field and found love of all places in Germany, got married, had children…his ambition to further study the deeper mysteries of magic led him to travel again, search for the ancient repositories of knowledge…returning for a few months to his family, and doing the same thing all over again. At the turn of the century he was approached by Nicholas Flamel, and so began the infamous partnership that led to his discovery of the twelve uses of Dragon's Blood and the perfection of the Philospher's Stone.

But world events, as it was won't to do, began to spiral out of control and as history had demonstrated, Empires that rise, will fall, eventually. The fervent fever of nationalism that swept through Europe, the technological revolution, the development of the airplane (which shrunk the world considerably) and then the tragedy that was the First World War; the Great War was what had stolen his family from him. The fury of that war was such that it left no one untouched, muggle nor wizard. One of the very first bomber biplanes had missed its target…and despite the wards designed only to keep out dark wizards…it had landed squarely into his family's house through the roof. That old grief never failed to touch him, even to this very day.

After the War, he threw himself into campaigning for the British seat of the International Confederation of Wizards, hoping that somehow he could push for policy to prevent wizards from being the unwitting victims of future Muggle wars. He had campaigned no less than two times before he was finally voted into the British ICW seat by the Wizengamot; his rhetoric on the rapidly advancing Muggle technology was difficult to understand for most wizards, but eventually the right ears heard and with the British Ministry leading the way, gold was poured into research for new magic to protect wizard holdings and land against the new means of Muggle warfare being developed.

When he had seemingly succeeded in his personal crusade, he grew bored with the ICWs now constant squabbling and politics and sought a new challenge, and lo and behold he found an ad in the _Daily Prophet_ newspaper that there was a vacancy in the position for Transfiguration Teacher of Hogwarts, he applied and so after nearly seventy years he returned to his alma mater.

He had barely begun to settle down in Hogwarts when once again the dark clouds approached again on the horizon. Albus, unlike most wizards, kept abreast of news in the Muggle world, and the rise of the Third Reich and Hitler was most ominous. The sheer speed of Hitler rise to power and the way he seemingly galvanized the old German economy out of nothing sent up glaring red flags in his mind. It was in 1938 that he had seen a news reel in a Muggle cinema showing Hitler and his entourage, and there in the background…was a face that Albus was literally astonished to see standing there in full SS uniform…the name was Joseph Mengele on the credits…but he knew different, it was a wizard, a man Albus had encountered while he had stayed with his wife in Germany all those years ago…Grindelwald.

Albus had spoken to the ICW soon after and raised his concerns…but it had fallen on deaf ears and by then it was too late. 1939. Hitler launched his Blitzkrieg attacks. And numerous European Ministries of Magic came under attack as well, from Grindelwald and his Knights of Walpurgis. Albus attended the 1940 ICW meeting and had to constantly restrain himself from shouting 'I told you so!' to the Supreme Mugwump of the time.

The journey home from the ICW meeting was one which would send him on a path that would forever cement his name in wizard history. He was too tired to Apparate all the way back to England from the unoccupied south of France, where the meeting was held and as such had sought shelter with a group of fleeing gypsies for the night. He sat alone that night at the campfire when out of nowhere one of the gypsies sat down next to him. And without further ado she became rigid and began to convulse…and from her mouth spoke the Voice of Prophecy.

The next morning he had hurriedly asked the leader of the Gypsies whether that specific woman was a Seeress, and when the man had confirmed it he felt the sheer weight of the world fall on his shoulders for the first time, it was a burden he still carried to this day.

Over the next two years, the fires of war spread across the world. It was truly a World War. And the burden to turn the tide in Europe had fallen squarely on Albus Dumbledore's shoulders thanks to the Voice of Prophecy. For the Allies could never hope to launch a successful invasion with Grindelwald and his Knights watching. And in the pressure of juggling his teaching duties and preparing for his date with destiny, he forgot about the needs about a young unloved, orphan boy named Tom Riddle…a mistake that the wizarding world was still paying for to this very day.

With Allied wizards finally organized after three long years of political struggle and shielding the Allied forces buildup on England for Operation Overlord, a successful invasion of Fortress Europe was finally launched. As soldiers landed on Juno, Sword and Omaha beach, Allied wizards had already apparated into France when the first paratroopers landed in the night before. The battle with the Knights of Walpurgis was a quiet thing, any Allied or Nazi soldier who happened to witness a wizard battle would be swiftly Memory charmed by whichever victorious wizard remained afterward. And so it was that when Allied territorial gains in Europe was substantial enough, that Albus spearheaded a swift strike by Apparating into Berlin itself and with a twenty strong force of Allied wizards at his side, and battled their way to Grindelwald.

The final duel was one Albus could clearly remember as if it was yesterday. The battle was so intense that wizards nearly twenty miles away reportedly could feel the magic boiling in the air. Albus, as a participant in that particular duel, rather disagreed with that assessment, certainly if you were in the building, yes, but twenty miles…no, it was merely an exaggeration of people with a 'wish I was there' attitude. With titanic effort Albus had managed to get a curse under Grindelwald's guard and it passed straight through the dark wizard's neck. A magically exhausted Albus was dragged away by his surviving compatriots out of the building and a portkey journey later they were safe in Allied held territory to recover. That was the end of the World War for Albus, though the battle with the Knights would continue until a week before VE day.

With the aftermath of the war, things changed even more. The Cold War between the American led NATO powers and Warsaw pact Russia; Europe was treated like a cake that had to be divided between two rival children at a party. Nuclear Proliferation. The Arms race. And it was as the Americans began their campaign to launch men to the moon that disturbing rumors and reports began to reach Albus of what young Riddle had been doing since graduating Hogwarts in 1944.

When Headmaster Dippet finally retired in '69 and Albus was unanimously voted as the replacement by the Board of Hogwarts Governors, he received that fateful visit from Tom Riddle, looking for a teaching position. It was immediately obvious as Albus stared at Tom's rather disfigured face that the rumors had been true. Tom was fashioning himself after the Slytherin mythos and Grindelwald and had been undergoing dark rituals to strengthen himself. As Tom or rather Voldemort left Albus knew that wheels had been set in motion that would never be stopped.

Barely a month after Voldemort left Hogwarts, the first Dark Mark rose into the sky above a Muggleborn home.

1970 began as 1939 did only that this time the War was only among wizards, it was a war that would be fought in shadows and in homes, in surprise raids and searches. All the while, behind the webs of deceit and blackmail and secrecy was Voldemort pulling the strings of nearly everyone in some form or manner. By year four of the War, people were already calling Voldemort…You-Know-Who. The eleven years of Terror, as the first War became known as later, didn't leave a single wizard or witch on the British Isles untouched, it even affected the Continent to some extent. Death Eaters hunted like pack wolves and victories against the darkness was few and far between. Despite his own Order of the Phoenix acting with a much freer hand than the Ministry and also achieving a few successes against Voldemort's forces, they were hopelessly outnumbered, and were getting picked off one by one.

By year ten of the War, Albus knew something had to give, either Voldemort would achieve total domination or the silver lining would finally reveal itself from behind the cloud. And to his everlasting relief, the latter was the case.

He was approached by Sybill Trelawney at the beginning of 1980, a great-great-granddaughter of the famous Seeress, Cassandra Trelawney, for the newly vacant position of Divination Professor. He had been planning to discontinue the subject, since Divination was a gift that you either had or did not, there was no in between, and it was not really a subject that could be taught. But politeness and respect for her ancestor prompted him to humor Sybill and grant her an interview in the Hog's Head Inn in Hogsmeade. It became immediately apparent that she had too little of the gift to be of any use in teaching Divination. He tried to politely explain that he did not think she would be suitable, and turned to leave. It was then that Albus heard the Voice of Prophecy for the second time in his life. It was a prophecy that didn't relate to his own destiny this time, but that of another…the prophecy stated that one would be born at the seventh month that year who could finally and truly conquer Voldemort despite the appearance of immortality that he had achieved.

The year that followed was the worst since World War 2 in his opinion. The Ministry was in tatters, his own Order was close to breaking point, all its members scattered and in hiding. And Albus received word from Severus Snape, his spy in Voldemort's ranks that the first lines of the prophecy was known to the Dark Lord and that he was searching for the one who would conquer him in the future.

Albus, knowing to whom the prophecy referred, leapt into action to protect the two families most likely to produce the child who would conquer Voldemort, for he had long ago narrowed down the candidates for the 'Chosen One'. It would either be the child of Frank and Alice Longbottom or James and Lily Potter; incidentally all were members of his own Order.

But it was all for nought, at the end of 1981 on Halloween, Voldemort had finally used his own 'spy' - Sirius Black - within the Order's ranks and penetrated the Fidelius Charm (the spy himself was used to anchor the Charm) that protected James and Lily Potter. Albus would not have thought it possible for the spy to be Sirius (they had heard rumors and reports for months that there was a traitor in their ranks), he was James best friend, but all the evidence though circumstantial pointed to Black.

And so on that fateful night Voldemort himself showed up at James and Lily's safehouse in Godric's Hollow. James was not a match for Voldemort and he was swiftly defeated and murdered, Lily herself died protecting her infant son Harry. But when Voldemort finally turned the wand on Harry…the unblockable Killing Curse was deflected for the first time in history. It apparently hit baby Harry's forehead and struck back at Voldemort…stripping him of his powers and body, leaving him a formless wraith that fled into the night.

The dark clouds passed and the sun began to shine for the first time in eleven long years. But even as the wizarding world rejoiced, Albus knew it was not the end. Voldemort had gone through much to ensure his immortality, and though he was defeated, he was not killed, though severely weakened. He spirited Harry away and placed him with the only blood relatives left on Lily's side. Using the ancient magic evoked by Lily to protect her son by dying for him, Albus sealed the protections around No. 4 Privet Drive – the home of Lily's sister, Petunia, a bitter muggle who resented her sister for her magical gifts.

Albus knew he was condemning Harry to ten dark years under the care of his Aunt and Uncle, but there was no choice in the matter…despite Voldemort's disappearance; his followers were still free, and angry for vengeance, roaming the country searching for the baby who could've apparently killed their Dark Lord. But it was the turn of tide in the war that everyone had been waiting for.

Without Voldemort, multitudes of witches and wizards came out of trances and bewitchment and was released from the bonds of blackmail and threat of death. Death Eaters were one by one apprehended and imprisoned in Azkaban – the wizard prison, some fought to the death rather than be apprehended but the outcome was the same. The following decade was a time of rebuilding and healing. Albus wished he could tell his fellow wizards that it was merely the eye of the storm, but they were too happy to be out from under eleven years of near constant oppression and would not want to believe that it was not over.

Then in 1991, Harry Potter, now eleven years old, learned of and rejoined the wizarding world, and attended his first year at Hogwarts. Albus was astounded and surprised at the boy, who seemed to have an instinctive grasp of magic as much as he had had when he entered Hogwarts as a first year so long ago.

Albus was roused out of his long introspection by the sound of a commotion outside his room. He focused his hearing and managed to pick out the words of what seemed to be a heated argument.

"Granger! Who is this? How can you bring anyone into HQ before clearing it with me first?" Ah, so Hermione and Neville had returned from their Horcrux excursion…he could so do with some good news. But what was Alastor belly-aching about now.

"Can't you see who this is?" asked the astonished voice of Hermione.

"No, he's got some form of Obscuration on his hood and cloak that's stopping my magical eye from seein' him," growled Alastor. That was rather odd. From appearances Hermione had brought a stranger into Resistance HQ, what was even more intriguing was that the stranger could hide himself from Alastor's 'Mad-Eye', while it was not outside the realm of possibility he had never heard it achieved before.

He heard Hermione sigh with frustration. "Alastor you know I'm trained to resist the Imperius, so is Neville. He and I vouch for this wizard and his identity will become known soon, but the first person to know, must be Albus. We also believe that he can help with Albus' condition."

Now Albus was rather apprehensive…he refused to let his own hopes be raised at a counter being found for his curse, there had been too many occasions like this which didn't pan out in the past few years.

"Fine," growled Moody, "but this character will not leave my sight until I'm sure of his loyalties and intentions."

A low chuckle was heard.

"Yeh, think that's funny eh?" said Moody. "Yeh try anythin' suspicious while you're in there and I'll make you wish for Voldemort's tortures."

With the argument seemingly over, Hermione walked into the room. Albus was rather surprised to see a spark of life that had returned in her eyes that had been missing for a long time, but her face was still the same grim mask. She appeared none the worse for wear after her journey to retrieve the second to last Horcrux; which either was a testament to her magical skill or that they had met with failure. She pulled out her wand and with a flick a hard chair was conjured, which she fell into with a huff.

"Greetings, Hermione," said Albus at last, after studying her for a few moments.

"Hi, Albus," she said with a wry smile. "I take it you overheard the conversation?"

"I caught a few salient facts," said Albus, with a raised eyebrow in her direction.

"Well, I think we should start with the Horcrux, that'll be easiest," murmured Hermione. "We managed to penetrate the defenses Riddle had in place to protect it."

"Indeed?" said Albus, but he clearly heard her tone…something was not right.

"It seems that we were not the only ones on a Horcrux hunt," she stated.

"What?" said Albus sharply.

"As I said, we penetrated the defenses, but what we found being protected was clearly a fake Horcrux," she said with her lips thinned in apparent irritation, "Slytherin's Locket had been substituted with a smaller locket, not even worth the few Galleons I have in my pocket. Inside this fake locket was a message." She handed Albus the small note from R.A.B., after he had read it, his eyes were distant as if looking at a far off place, no doubt searching his long memory for anything that would be helpful in solving this twist to the puzzle. When his eyes returned to the message, Hermione continued, "what we've so far determined is that this wizard had to be a Death Eater and the note dates back to the late seventies."

"The language used does suggest the former," confirmed Albus, "and if we take our supposition further, then clearly it was someone who was initially seduced or conscripted into Riddle's service, then later saw the true depths Riddle would go to, to achieve power and tried to back out, and failed. I'm rather amazed that anyone else could guess what Riddle's safeguards against death were."

"And also had the power to get past Riddle's safeguards," said Hermione thoughtfully, "not many wizards besides you could have achieved that Albus during that era."

"True," nodded Albus, "there are very few who could've done it…but if my guess is right as to the identity of R.A.B. then we underestimate the ingenuity and boldness of youth."

"Albus?"

"R.A.B., Regulus Aries Black, a dutiful pureblood son in all respects, all but groomed by his mother to take his place among the rank and file of Death Eaters," said Albus thoughtfully. "He did very well academically, and like his brother, Sirius, was a very talented wizard, but whereas Sirius was skilled in Transfiguration and became an animagus…Regulus was a talented Arithmancer and he had access to the entire Black family library in Grimmauld Place…a place we've never been able to fully account for its contents. Or there could be hidden archives somewhere belonging to the family that we never knew of, the possibilities are endless."

"I should check our Library for confirmation on that, but a guess from you Albus is more than often correct," said Hermione with a rue smile. "So pending that, our next stop would be Grimmauld Place for any clue that Regulus might have left behind as to the Horcrux's location."

"Indeed," said Albus, "though in theory the house should've remained secure with Sirius transferring ownership to Harry. Since Harry's death, however, his will turns everything he owns over to you. But we don't know if the house itself will admit you since…if you forgive me for saying so…you are not a pureblood."

"True," said Hermione, but a small smile appeared on her face, "however, before we go any further I think our mystery guest needs to examine you, and if all goes well in a few days we can get you out of this bed."

"You'll forgive me, my dear, if I retain a healthy dose of skepticism," said Albus with a sigh.

Hermione turned toward the entrance of the door and said, "You can come in."

Harry walked in, his staff tapping on the ground and he observed the sorry state the world's greatest sorcerer had been reduced to through cunning deception and treachery. Dumbledore looked extremely thin, nearly skin and bones, his bright white beard and hair had dulled to a grey and was matted and curled. His blue eyes to his own credit were still bright and twinkling. Harry let his cloak and hood remain shrouding him as he walked towards Albus' bed. He heard the clunk of Mad-Eye Moody's wooden leg right behind him and kept a 'mental' eye on the paranoid wizard.

Albus' reaction to his presence was rather intriguing…the old man merely gazed at Harry inscrutably and then his eyes turned towards the staff in curiosity. Harry stood next to the bed and stared down at the man, opening his eyes to the true Universe beyond. What he beheld could be closely likened to a massive eagle that's had its wings tied around its body…Albus' aura was being encased in a complex grey-black mesh of lines.

Harry nodded towards Hermione.

"He needs to touch you on your forehead Albus," said Hermione. Moody snapped to attention and his wand was partially raised as Albus stared into Hermione's eyes and eventually nodded. Taking that as permission Harry leaned over and placed his palm on the wrinkled forehead of Albus and closed his eyes…he found even more strands of the curse working on his stomach and the lower end of his spinal cord…judging by the pattern, the curse went through the back and stomach before finally settling over his aura. He was startled however, as he saw the nature of the curse and what it was.

"Who cast this curse?" asked Harry sharply.

"Rookwood," said Hermione.

Harry's mouth thinned in anger. It seemed that the ex-Head of the Department of Mysteries must have stumbled upon some 'magic' that was passed down from Merlin's time. For the curse was actually one used by the Ancients to bind the powers of another Ancient who had committed any crime or act of punishable gross negligence. It was developed when the Ancients first began to evolve their abilities and their society was still getting their act together. He made a mental note not to kill Rookwood if he could help it; clearly the man warranted a full interrogation.

Harry focused his thoughts again and looked deeper into the lines of the curse…this was a skill lost to wizards…and finally, within the muons of the energy of the curse the Ancient text scrolled past his eyes. He moved his hand from Albus' forehead to hover over the chest of the old man. He carefully scanned the text and finally when the proper moment came his fingers flexed as if he was grabbing something.

There was a bright flash of light that momentarily blinded everyone in the room.

Harry slammed his staff to the ground…Moody was blasted off his feet…and the spell he had been about to send into Harry's back shot harmlessly into the ceiling.

There was another bright flash of light and everyone heard Albus groan in pain.

Another flash occurred and Harry had to will a strong shield around himself to protect from the magical backlash as Albus' rather considerable powers angrily expanded outward and flexed for the first time in years. Hermione also had the presence of mind to raise a shield, but it wasn't powerful enough to shield her from being flung off her feet and crashing into the wall next to the unconscious Moody.

And just like that…it was over.

"Congratulations Albus, you're free," said Harry with a grin, allowing his true voice to emerge.

Dumbledore was too in a daze with the re-emergence of his own powers to notice though. His hair immediately regained their pure white shine, though it was still matted and curled, confirming his own long suspicions that Albus used daily spellwork to keep them straight at that length. Harry walked over and helped Hermione to her feet.

"You OK?"

"Yeah," she said, shaking her head to clear it from the disorientation. "You stunned Moody?"

"Indeed, the process of removing the curse from Albus was surely due to arouse his…paranoia," smirked Harry, who turned to face the bed again. He saw that Albus had most definitely heard his answer and his eyes were a rather comical sight for a man with an omniscient reputation. With a laugh, he removed the hood of his cloak and revealed his face.

"How…how…how can this be?" said Albus in a near whisper, his question directed to Hermione.

"I don't know," shrugged Hermione, "Harry's been vague at best about it, and I've tested for any sign whether he is a fake. Neville and I ruled out every known form of disguise or illusion magic that we knew of."

"Which is a considerable amount of knowledge," said Albus his wide eyes never leaving Harry.

"I recall you telling me in my first year at Hogwarts," said Harry with a friendly grin, "that, to the well prepared mind, death is but the next great adventure. Oh, Albus," he said, closing his eyes as if in fond memory, "you have no idea how wonderful that adventure truly is."

"But for one who was so young to achieve it…" said Albus, astonished. Harry was not surprised that Albus knew, at least in part, of Ascension – he did have access to Merlin's Journal.

"You could not fully read the Journal, as such you are unaware that there is more than one way to reach the 'great adventure' as you so eloquently put it," said Harry, shaking his head in apparent amusement.

"I'm speechless," said Albus, his eyes twinkling merrily, "and it's a rare thing indeed for that to happen."

"You are convinced?"

"With my powers restored I can indeed sense you for who you truly are Harry Potter," said Albus, a great jovial smile blossoming on his face.

"Good," nodded Harry in satisfaction, "that simplifies things, you and I can speak later in more detail of the great journey. However, we must first tend to matters of the present. Hermione…please make Moody a bit more comfortable…" She nodded and levitated the unconscious Moody onto the soft rug in the middle of the room. "Good, now…" Harry opened his hand, a cube, made up of white light appeared and faded to a show a portable Ancient Healing Device. It was also made up of black naquadah and the rim and the bottom made up rows of engraved Ancient writing. He placed it on the bedstand and pressed a specific combination of the Ancient characters and the device flared into life with a silvery white light. "This will accelerate your return to good health. You will still need good nutrition, physical therapy, and muscle restoratives but instead of taking months, it will now perhaps take less than five weeks."

"Fascinating device," said Albus, peering at it. "I must admit, the form of power its using has me a little worried though."

"Why would it worry you Albus?" asked Hermione, looking fascinated as she gazed at the object.

"Because it closely resembles the magic used to create an Inferi," said Albus. Hermione gasped and started to back away.

"Relax," said Harry easily, "it will not turn you into an Inferi, you would have to first be dead within the devices' area of effect. In fact, the spell used on corpses to turn them into Inferi was derived from the original healing magic of this device." His staff's head flared slightly and a soft armchair appeared and he settled himself down in it with a sigh of relief. "Magical Healing devices aside, I think it time we had a chat about the future."

"What did you have in mind?" asked Albus with a raised eyebrow.

"It should be obvious as to why I've returned," said Harry, "and the end of Riddle is of course my main goal…but it is not the only one." He paused for a moment, seemingly to gather his thoughts. "I wonder what your response would be if I said that to return to the previous system of governance after the war is over, would be sheer folly."

"You are echoing the sentiment of many wizards in the younger generation," sighed Albus in resignation, "but I cannot argue against it. The evidence of the Ministry's failure as a governing system is all around us."

"Quite," said Harry dryly, "anyway, now that I know we are somewhat on the same page. I can turn to my more immediate plans. My efforts until your recovery will be solely focused on the remaining Horcrux. In this intervening time, Albus, I need you to simply recover and begin ordering the Resistance to step up its attacks."

"We can hardly hold our own as it is, Harry," said Albus gravely.

"I understand that," replied Harry, "I don't need you to work the Aurors and the others to death, begin slowly, say an extra raid per week, or deploy so you can hit multiple targets at once. You don't even have to be successful, just send your people in and out, a spell exchange will suffice."

Albus instantly surmised the strategy, "You wish to create a screen of confusion and misdirection."

"Yes," nodded Harry, "I wish to overload Riddle with reports of battles, sightings of Resistance members and activity, until he's up to his ears in parchment. I want to muddle that cunning paranoia he possesses as he hopelessly tries to piece together our strategy. To him, everything will seem a feint, a diversion, a trap."

"And the ultimate purpose of this?" asked Albus with narrowed eyes.

"So that when I eventually destroy Slytherin's Locket, we will be ready…" he paused for a moment, "to retake Hogwarts."

"Harry!" said Hermione astonished. "That's…you do remember what it cost Riddle to take Hogwarts in the first place…he lost nearly a quarter of his army in the process…Snape now holds the enhanced wards against us, that we originally created to protect Hogwarts." She let the irony of that remain unspoken.

"I understand that," said Harry patiently, "but if I could have a gander at Merlin's Journal, I believe I could find a 'backdoor' in the ancient magic that is the basis for the wards…so to speak. After all, the Founders were all Merlin's apprentices at one point or another."

"You believe you can read this text?" asked Albus with wide eyes, taking a glance at the Journal still in his lap, the mysterious geometric script glaring out of it. Harry held out his hand for the Journal and Albus gingerly handed the ancient book over. Harry scanned the first few lines of Alteran text on the first page and chuckled in mirth.

"What is it?" asked Hermione, looking fascinated as she leaned over to look at the text as well.

"It's a rather wry warning 'If you can read this, and you do not go by the name of Myrdinn, beware, for the knowledge held within is only for those whose minds that are truly open to the greater Universe and enlightened.'"

"Are you serious? You're not just making it up?" said Hermione looking skeptical.

Harry frowned in annoyance at her and said in fluent Ancient, "_Does it sound like I'm making this language up to you_?"

She blinked in incomprehension for a moment then blushed and muttered, "Sorry, I honestly thought you were making a joke." Harry waved her apology away.

"Don't worry," he said distractedly as he scanned the text further and carefully turned a page, after a few moments of scanning that page, he closed the book and said, "It does have what we need, but the Horcrux needs finding and I will not bring such a valuable book with me into danger." He handed it back to Albus. "Well, it's been a long day, and I strangely find that my stomach requires food…"

"Why is it strange?" asked Hermione in askance.

"Eating is not necessary to sustain yourself in the higher planes of existence," said Harry simply. "And then a little nap…I think you can do with some sleep too Hermione, we set out first thing tomorrow morning for Grimmauld Place. I have a feeling this particular Horcrux is not going to be easily found."

The sun had barely risen the next day and Harry was lightly shaking awake Neville from his slumber. There was enough room in the tunnels of Glastonbury Tor to excavate private bed chambers for each active Resistance member. The inner dimensions were altered as well to appear much larger from within than without, allowing for a relative comfort and luxury, depending on what the occupying wizard could permanently conjure or what possessions they had with them. For almost every Resistance member living in HQ was either; a Healer, an Auror in exile and their immediate family; a hunted Muggleborn or Half-Blood; Purebloods who wanted nothing to do with Voldemort but were hunted for their apparent betrayal; there were even a few Vampire covens who'd been exiled for not siding with the majority of Vampires who had thrown in their lot with Voldemort; the Goblins permanently stationed in Glastonbury had even moved their families to the relative safety of HQ (after a nasty incident where Goblins were taken hostage and money had been extorted for the release of the captives); and of course, the house-elves that maintained and cleaned the place.

Neville groaned and rolled over in his bed and blearily opened his eyes at the figure standing over him.

"Harry?" said the drowsy wizard, still clad in light grey robes that many Aurors and Resistance member favored when going into battle.

"Time to get up," said Harry, "we're Apparating to Grimmauld place after we get some breakfast in our bellies."

"Oh," said Neville, wiping the sleep out of his eyes and standing up out of his rather comfy looking single bed. "Thanks, I'll be out in a minute." Harry nodded and headed out of the rather spartan bedchambers, closing the braced door behind him and waited in the tunnel corridor. No one passing paid any attention to Harry whatsoever, for he was projecting an aura of disinterest and casualness around him; people passing would see a wizard standing outside the door but wouldn't take cognizance of his identity or find him interesting enough to pay attention to. Only a wizard in the league of Dumbledore would not have been fooled by it.

The door opened and Neville appeared, looking much refreshed and sporting a clean set of black robes. Harry gestured for him to follow and they walked down the rather busy tunnels of wizards going this way and that, children playing, Healers bustling around, they even passed a sinister looking Vampire who was arguing with an Auror about not enough blood being acquired from Muggle blood banks for their needs.

Glastonbury Tor was very much like a small city or town in every respect.

They now entered the social nexus of Resistance HQ; a place affectionately called the Great Hall. It was product of the combined efforts of wizards and Goblins and was an attempt to recreate the Great Hall of Hogwarts down to even the enchanted ceiling that showed the sky overhead Glastonbury Tor. Though on closer inspection it was obvious that it was not a perfect replica; there were no large mullioned windows which led in great shafts of light and there were a few areas where natural cave formations were left, usually along the corners or where pillars should have been. And apparently; according to Hermione who had given him the 5cent tour last night before bed, the enchanted ceiling was 'switched off' when no food was being served, as they hadn't found a way to permanently empower the great enchantment.

Breakfast was in full swing already and they found Hermione wearing a set of light emerald robes on the end of one the four great tables, already tucking into a plate of sausages, eggs, and hash browns.

"Morning," she greeted. Neville grunted a hello and after piling food on a plate began to dig in.

"You were saying?" prompted Harry, for they had been in a discussion when she suggested that Neville would need assistance to rouse from sleep in time.

"…yes, apparently Pomfrey is over the moon about Albus' improvement, she's asking to meet the wizard who healed him," said Hermione.

"Unfortunately I cannot reveal myself publicly yet and while my returned presence would galvanize the efforts of the Resistance," said Harry archly, "and make no mistake, I want it to be known eventually, I do feel that there has to be some…delicateness to how it's done."

"A closed meeting of the Council of Races would do it," suggested Neville. The Council of Races was composed of the leader of each race in the Resistance, wizard (Dumbledore), Vampire, Goblin and even a House-elf(the oldest known House-elf sat on it and would only offer ideas if asked for it by Dumbledore).

"Good idea," nodded Hermione.

"That can be done a week before the attack on Hogwarts," said Harry in a near whisper.

"Why so late?" asked Neville.

"I don't want to fault the efforts of the Resistance," responded Harry, "but we can't be sure that Riddle has no spies within Glastonbury Tor. It's prudent to compartmentalize information in any clandestine organization, such as the Resistance."

"Only those who need to know, should know," nodded Neville in understanding.

After breakfast they headed as a group out of the replica Great Hall and after navigating the numerous passageways found the 'Arrival room' where the receiving set of Transporter Rings was located that allowed people to leave Glastonbury Tor. The arrival room was actually the nexus of the tunnel system and branched off in several directions; it was quite a large area, easily going hundred meters in every direction. The moment they entered the arrival room Harry's eyes was immediately drawn to a prominent area off to one side where there was a raised dais and a perfectly square stone with a gleaming chrome sword stuck into it. The sword had a relatively simple black hilt with only a spherical jewel set at its base. In front of this area an eerily blue line had been drawn in the floor and radiated light upward.

"Did Albus tell you to ward anyone from touching Excalibur?" asked Harry with a raised eyebrow to Hermione.

"It was the first thing he asked me to do when we both entered this place for the first time," she said; staring at the famous sword with an eager, curious eye. They eventually tore their eyes away from it and approached the Auror's assigned to guard and control the Ring platform. One Auror ran a metallic wand over them that beeped and shrilled in various tones…it's function was to obviously detect any forms of curses on a person…the Auror then put that down and next switched to his own wand and began to murmur detection spells. They moved on to Neville with the same procedure but skipped Harry entirely due to the wards he was radiating with his aura.

Another Auror, seated at a desk near the Ring controls embedded in the rock, began to tap his wand on various tinkling and spindling magical instruments…which started to light up with ethereal lights of various colors. Out of one device smoke pored out and formed a number…9, which started to slowly dwindle over a period of a minute and when it reached zero the Auror said, "OK, everyone around the Tower has been driven away, step into the Rings." The Auror was referring to the area of effect wards placed on St Michael's Tower. Since people needed to be able to come and go during the day as well, the wards drove non-magical people away as they all remembered some forgotten appointment or family emergency that had to be attended to. Another strong Notice-Me-Not Ward was placed to ward off any unfamiliar wizard visitors.

Harry supposed he could just grab Neville and Hermione and Teleport himself through the Apparition wards that surrounded the Tor. But the disruption in the wards would be noticeable and he didn't want to create a false alarm and cause everyone to think they were being attacked.

The Rings shot out of the ground and a few moments later they were standing underneath St Michael's Tower again, this time in the early morning, where the dew on the grass sparkled in the newly risen sun like thousands of diamonds that were strewn across the lawns on the Tor. They walked to the designated Disapparition point fifty meters away from the Tower and after checking to make sure no one was in the area, vanished on the spot.

They reappeared in a grimy narrow alley between two tall houses, which was bordered on one side by a fence and opened up onto the street in the other direction. Hermione and Neville cast Notice-Me-Not Charms on themselves and when they glanced back at Harry were rather startled to see that somehow his staff had appeared in his right hand sometime during their Apparition. This was obviously not the place to talk as the houses on either side radiated the domestic sounds of people getting ready for work.

They walked towards the street and emerged onto Grimmauld Place itself. They had appeared between 4 and 5 Grimmauld Place and walked down the length of the street. Harry surveyed the place for any changes since 'he' or at least, since his clone had last been here and was rather startled at the difference. Seven years ago the place had looked rather unwelcome; the majority of houses had had broken windows; paint was peeling from the doors and rubbish heaps were prominent in the small front gardens of each home. Now, however, that was a thing of the past…it seemed that the area that Grimmauld Place occupied had undergone a real estate revolution. The front gardens were immaculate, the old dilapidated houses repaired or torn down and rebuilt…the cars in the driveways looked expensive and upmarket.

But…looking like a wart amongst healthy skin was Number 12 Grimmauld Place; it had not changed at all from the time cloneHarry was here last; the same dilapidated front of peeling paint, bare earth instead of a garden, worn front steps, and a black scratched door with silver serpent knocker glared out at them.

Harry was rather thankful that he could see the old house and that it seemed to recognize its owner; it would have been awkward answering why he couldn't see it due to the fact that, technically, it had never been revealed to him. But Albus had originally been the Secret Keeper for the Fidelius Charm that had protected the house, but a quirk of the charm was that a Secret Keeper couldn't keep more than one secret…and as such, the moment the Fidelius was cast again to protect Glastonbury Tor, that the Fidelius here lifted. But Number 12 had more protections than just that; Non-Magical aversion wards; it was also partially removed from this dimension…making it 'Unplottable' as wizards called it.

Harry led the way to the front door and tapped it with his staff. Loud metallic clicks and a clatter of a chain was heard as the 'magic' of the mechanism worked to unlock the door for its owner.

They passed the threshold and into the low light of the hall. The damp, dust, and sweetish rotten smell that had once pervaded the house had again returned, since the house lay unused for nearly three years. The peeling wallpaper seemed even worse than last time, and the carpet on the floor had been worn into its stiches. The chandelier above, once clean, was again matted with cobwebs. Harry looked to his left where an irregular hole was in the wall…he recalled the rather satisfying memory of when his clone had blasted the cursed painting of Sirius' mother into smithereens after she had flung just one insult too many for his temper to withstand.

"Goodness," said Hermione with a disgusted face, obviously referring to the smell.

"Tell me about it," said Neville, wincing.

"We're just going to have to live with it," said Harry lightly, "cast a Bubble-Head Charm if it gets too bad. Anyway, we start a floor by floor, room by room search. We have to examine every square inch of this house. Neville, start with the basement, Hermione, take this floor…I'll go up to the first floor…take your time. If you're in trouble or found something you think is significant, send a Patronus Messenger."

Both nodded and each went to their respective search area.

Five hours passed…Harry had already moved up to the second floor when Hermione's Otter Patronus charged at him from the floor and dissolved into his body. Harry walked calmly down the stairs to the entrance hall and saw that a rather dusty Neville and Hermione standing near the edge of the staircase waiting for him.

"You found something?"

"Not as such," said Hermione thoughtfully, "I had more of a realization as I was beginning to search the third floor. I'll definitely need to use Albus's Pensive to examine the memory more closely."

"Can you please elaborate, Hermione?" asked Harry with a sigh, Hermione had this annoying habit of always half-explaining something that left you clueless while she first ran off and tried to verify it.

"Do you recall that summer before fifth year when we were cleaning this house?"

"Vividly," said Harry dryly. His clones' memory of that time was some of the most emotionally tumultuous experiences he had ever seen. It was an endless rollercoaster of highs and lows, not to mention the arduous task of cleaning a house bristling with sinister artifacts and enchantments and magical pests of nearly every variety.

"We were binning a lot of the dark stuff we found in one of the studies, in the glass fronted cabinets," explained Hermione, her eyes closed, struggling to recall the memory, "there was that music box that cursed you with neverending sleep if listened too long…an Order of the Merlin…" she opened her eyes grimly, "and a heavy locket that we couldn't open."

Harry's eyes widened at that information and closed his own eyes…and delved into the memory of his clone within his own mind…the heavy locket…fifth year… "Damn, I recall it, yes, but it's too vague, we didn't pay attention to any markings on the thing."

"That's why we need a Pensive," stated Hermione. Harry felt a sick, sinking feeling come over him as he realized something. He sighed heavily and dropped his head. "What is it?"

"Assume this locket is indeed the one we're looking for," he said darkly, looking alternately at Neville and Hermione. "What do you think happened to all the objects we put in that sack? The locket surely was among all the debris, snuffboxes, and cursed tweezers we threw away!"

"You're saying…" said Hermione faintly, "we may have simply thrown away the Locket that may be the Horcrux?" Harry nodded grimly.

"Wait a minute," said Neville with a frown, "don't you guys remember that blasted house-elf that use to be here…Kreacher, when we were cleaning up, he was usually trying to sneak things away from the rubbish bag…things that were valuable to him or any member of the 'proper' Black family."

"By following that line of logic, we could conclude that anything belonging to Regulus would have been pilfered from the bags by Kreacher," said Harry thoughtfully. "Depending on where Sirius took the bags after cleaning was done for the day…Kreacher would have had ample opportunity to get into them."

"But I looked in Kreacher's old den, nothing there," said Neville, their thoughts now dwelt to where else the foul house-elf would've hidden the things he stole.

"The attic?" said Hermione…there was no further prompting required and as one they rushed up the stairs.

On the third floor corridor, Harry paused underneath the trapdoor leading into the attic. He reached up and pulled it open…a ladder descended and he promptly climbed up.

The attic was pitch dark, so he willed his staff to provide light. This caused twitters and menacing sounds to erupt all around him…clearly the place was filled with all sorts of vermin. He focused and let his power flare all around him…the menacing sounds abruptly cut off and were silenced. Neville and Hermione had climbed in by this time and had their wands out and raised…ready to fend off anything.

The attic was rather large as attics go. You could easily stand upright in it; the old, cobwebbed supports of the roof curved at angles all around them; the shapes of ages old boxes that was stacked haphazardly all around them.

"Watch your step, there are quite a few nasty little critters in hiding around here," said Harry softly, "I'm discouraging them from attacking, but if you step on them…"

"Understood," nodded Hermione, and they both lit their own wands and pointed the narrow shafts of light produced towards the floor and began to walk around the boxes, searching for anything that looked like a stash or hideout. After half an hour of fruitless manual searching Harry said, "Stand still, I'm going to try something…" He slammed his staff into the wooden floor and there was a bright flash from it. From the various boxes and all around them different colors of light emerged ethereally.

"If you see anything blue that is more than likely our Locket," stated Harry, looking around.

"What is this spell? Is it like my Magic Mist?" asked Hermione, looking around her.

"If Magic Mist is what you refer to as a spell that brings magic into the visible spectrum and assigns a color to it…then yes," nodded Harry. "The frequency for Blue I have assigned to any form of soul that is present in the room."

"Why aren't we blue then as well?" asked Neville.

"I consciously prevented the spell from affecting people, because we are not looking for a person as such," he explained as he looked around the attic for any blue light.

There was none.

Eventually, Harry waved his staff and the haze of colors all around the attic vanished.

"It's not here, but for thoroughness sake, we should check the second and third floors as well…" And that was just what they did. There was an initial sign of hope about an hour of searching later when Neville discovered a secret portal type doorway on the third floor in the master bedroom, but it only led to a similar door hidden on the ground floor…probably intended as a fast way to get down in case there was need for a hasty escape from the house.

The second floor was equally disappointing…though Hermione did score a few new books for herself from the remnants of the Black Library room.

"Ok, so it's not here," said Neville with a huff of disappointment. "Where else could it be?"

Harry sat down on a rickety old chair at a study desk where Hermione was busy dusting off the books with waves of her wand. He gazed around the room with the partially filled bookcases, his mind churning on this new problem…_where could it be? Where could it be?_ He chanted it to himself in a mantra. He stared past Hermione as she eagerly opened a book after dusting it…she apparently couldn't see well in the low light of the room, and lit her wand with a Lumos Spell. His eyes caught a flash of silver from the initial flare of her spell. Sitting on one of the empty shelves of the library was a silver goblet.

Harry stood and walked towards the shelf, his eyes narrowed and frowning. He picked up the goblet, which for some reason seemed to stir a memory within. He turned it around and saw the Black family crest on the other side; the crest had been partly removed and now only hung on a single tiny hinge.

…_Mundungus Fletcher, the criminal underworld spy for the Order of the Phoenix, was polishing a goblin wrought silver goblet with his cuff…asking Sirius how old the silver was…Sirius replied that it dated from the sixteenth century and that it was embossed with the Black Family crest…Mundungus muttered that it could come off…_

…_In sixth year Harry and his friends were walking through Hogsmeade, suspicious of Draco Malfoy…Harry bumped into Mundungus causing the sack the old thief was carrying to fall to the ground and spill all its contents…among them the goblet…Harry was furious, grabbed the thief and slammed him against a nearby wall…he was stealing from Grimmauld Place…Tonks mistakenly intervenes and Mundungus uses his chance to grab his loot and Apparate away…_

"Harry?" asked Hermione in concern, placing a hand on his shoulder, snapping him out of his clones' memories. "Why are you staring at that goblet so intently?"

"I know who has the Horcrux, or at least, if he doesn't have it, he knows who has…" murmured Harry.

"What? Who?" asked Hermione urgently.

"Kreacher might have been pilfering here during fifth year…but during our sixth year another was doing the same…and we caught him red handed in Hogsmeade…"

"You don't think…" said Hermione, nearly gasping in realization.

"We have to find Mundungus Fletcher."

_A/N: Not much excitement going on here, I know. Almost like watching the evidence gathering scenes in CSI. And a bit of a history lesson. But I needed to anchor the reader in the wizarding world after tossing them in the deep end in the previous chapter. _


	17. Chapter 17

**Chapter Seventeen – Entrapment**

Harry twirled his staff in both hands as he was dodging two jets of sickly looking yellow light. His staff came to bear parallel to the soft-grassed earth below his feet and from either end two large bolts of magma hot flame shot out towards the two Death Eaters he was dueling.

Hermione and Neville were each busy with their own Death Eater, their wands blurs of movement as spells, curses and hexes were traded, each seeking to get under the guard of the other.

The screaming on Harry's left told him that one of his opponents hadn't got a defense up in time, while the right Death Eater simply hurled a Flame-Freezing Charm towards the bolt of fire and it froze into a jagged icicle. Harry gestured with his left hand before the icicle could fall towards the ground and it shot towards the Death Eater like it was launched out of a cannon. Unfortunately, the icicle was too blunt to impale the Death Eater but the ice shattered upon the chest of the surprised dark wizard. The breaking of ribs was heard as the Death Eater was flung off his feet from the resultant velocity and crashed into the ground ten feet away.

The torched Death Eater to Harry's left had managed to put out the flames that had almost begun to burn his skin…as it was, the black robes he had once been dressed in was in tatters and left large patches of skin exposed. There were angry burns on his face and hands though, and Harry was impressed despite himself as to the man's tolerance for pain.

The scorched Death Eater began to throw spells again, the least harmful of which was a Choking Hex. Harry pointed the end of his staff towards the oncoming spells; a shield made up of a complex weaving of blue glowing lines appeared at one end while out of the other end a glowing white light appeared and resolved into dozens of thin white jets of power that zipped around like angry bees. The salvo of spells aimed at him were absorbed harmlessly and in some cases (depending on the spell) deflected back at the caster…Harry released the jets of power and they zoomed towards the Death Eater…taking multiple vectors. The Death Eater's shield saved him from his own spells and some of the laser beam like jets of light, but he clearly hadn't thought that they were self-guiding to an extent and numerous numbers of them penetrated his defenses.

The now dead Death Eater fell to the ground riddled with numerous holes in his body.

He saw the other badly injured Death Eater clutching his ribs in pain and struggling to breathe, but was trying to raise a wand towards Hermione's back, who was still locked in combat with her opponent. Harry slammed his staff into the ground in anger and the jewel at its head began to glow with power. The injured Death Eater did not notice anything wrong at first as he mentally prepared to send a Killing Curse into the Mudblood's back, but the next thing he knew it was as if a giant invisible hand had grabbed a hold of him.

The Death Eater screamed as the pressure caused his broken ribs to begin lacerating his lungs, Harry gestured with his staff and the dark wizard was shot off the ground and high into the darkness of the night sky, his scream was cut short by the sheer velocity at which he was traveling…and he vanished into the distance. A rather clinical part of Harry estimated that the man would probably plunge into the Atlantic Ocean about a hundred kilometers off the west coast of England at the terminal velocity for a falling body in the Earth's atmosphere.

Harry turned to watch the two fierce battles still continuing.

He would not interfere…unless the tide turned against either of his friends. He could probably end the two remaining Death Eaters with apparent ease in this situation. But while it would solve the problem it would also be robbing Neville and Hermione of the opportunity to grow stronger and forge their own path. Harry was on borrowed time back within the wizarding world and he would not allow them to pin all their hopes for the future on him.

As far as he was concerned, his primary overriding focus, was to merely stop the war in the wizarding world. Killing Riddle and disbanding his forces, while providing personal satisfaction could not be the focus…as such a desire would eventually lead to corruption…Riddle's death would merely be a by-product of his efforts.

Nothing is won in war. Both sides lose, in the ultimate end.

Harry's attention was drawn to Neville as the stout former Gryffindor overwhelmed the shield of opponent with a very strong Hex that he couldn't catch because of its sheer speed and sideways slash of his wand later a purple flame traced itself across the Death Eaters chest, causing the dark wizard to fall to the ground in a crumpled heap.

The last Death Eater, wisely realizing that retreat was the better part of valor at the moment, managed to surprise Hermione by flinging a curse near her feet that caused dust, grass and debris to shoot up into her face, a moment later, the dark wizard vanished…no doubt by Portkey.

"Damn!" cussed Hermione, wheezing, coughing and wiping her eyes to clear them of the foreign debris.

"Easy," said Neville, coming over and with a gentle wave of his wand her face was clean and eyes clear.

"Thanks," she said, brushing off her robes and looking around. The battle had taken place on the far outskirts of a village Harry didn't know the name of somewhere in central England. "It seems the Aurors are still busy trying to drive the Dementors away." Harry looked towards the village in the distance and saw what had to be the light of Patronus's radiating upward in the sky from between the various houses and buildings.

"At least they can now focus solely on them," said Harry evenly, "send a Patronus to Shacklebolt that we've taken care of the Death Eater escort." She nodded and a bright ethereal Otter shot out of her wand and raced into the distance towards the village.

"The Obliviators are going to have their work cut out," said Neville, as in the distance a rather large Patronus crested the rooftops to chase after a fleeing group of five Dementors. "There's no way the Muggles inside the buildings are missing this." The Obliviators – wizards who specialized in the modification of memories – did not exist anymore as a separate group as in the days of the Ministry, but were merged with the Auror Corps; as was the standard Law Enforcement Patrol. He now turned to study Harry's opponents or rather opponent and winced at the state of the Death Eater looking like Swiss cheese. "Where's the other one?"

Harry raised an eyebrow at his friend. "Probably wishing he had brought a broom with him into battle." The tone with which this was spoken left it clear to Neville that he should let the matter drop.

Resistance HQ, Glastonbury Tor

Harry stood leaning against his staff, looking rather exhausted after the Death Eater battle and subsequent mop up of the Dementors attempting to prey upon the village and the modification of dozens of non-magical people's memories. As it was, despite the Resistance's intervention after a tip off from the Goblins working intelligence duties, twenty people in the village had lost their souls.

St Mungo's, the hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries was no more…as such the Auror's had the rather grim task of taking the twenty afflicted people and administering euthanasia on them by cyanide and cremating the remains, since the soulless made for excellent Inferi. There was no other choice. It was either this, or watch as those twenty soulless bodies be made Inferi and eventually kill hundreds more.

Harry had observed this grim preventative action and initially been sickened by it. Was this what Riddle had reduced even his worst enemies to? Sadly, this was the case. But after seeing how disgusted the Aurors were with themselves afterwards it had at least shown that it still bothered them, no matter how many times they did it.

"A rather hollow victory," said Albus sadly after hearing Harry's report of events. The old wizard was looking much better; his long silver white hair was now perfectly straight, his face had regained some color and plumpness, he seemed a lot more animated with his gestures and his voice was strong.

"Indeed," said Harry stoically, adopting a Teal'C like expression.

"Are you certain this Death Eater who managed to escape did not see your face?"

"My hood is powered to remain in place and my face hidden in shadow," answered Harry with a sigh. "All he could report to Riddle is that they encountered an unknown faceless wizard wielding a staff. I am content to let the mystery of me gnaw in his mind."

Dumbledore nodded, conceding the point.

"Has there been any news of Fletcher? It's been two weeks," said Harry with a raised expectant eyebrow.

"No," said Albus with his own sigh, "my contacts abroad are looking, but so far nothing has turned up. If he is still in the British Isles; all of the Resistance has been informed to be on the lookout for him but not to approach, only follow and report on his movements directly to me."

"Good," nodded Harry his mind going at hyperspeed, "can't the Goblins help us by looking into Fletcher's finances?"

"If Mundungus has a vault to store his…loot and gold, as it were, the Goblins would never co-operate and reveal it to us," said Albus with a wry smile, "they allow us only to look at known Death Eater accounts. And since he is no Death Eater, merely a thief, they will not make an exception…Gringotts will not further risk its own reputation as being impartial…they would lose a lot of business if they alienated the criminal underworld. This war has already cut their profits…they will not risk doing something that will cause a gold rush."

"Then how do we find him?" snarled Harry in frustration. "How do you possibly find an old experienced criminal like him when he doesn't want to be found?"

"Ah," said Albus, a grin forming on his face. "I've had an idea about that…we do not have to search for him as such…we have to get him to come to us."

"A trap?"

"From a certain point of view, yes," nodded Albus, his eyes twinkling in mischief. "I prefer to see it as a rather strong incentive based invitation. Remember, I know the scallywag quite well."

"We need bait then," said Harry with a tired grin.

"I know just the thing," said Albus, his eyes glittering in humor and even more mischievously. Sometimes, Harry wondered how it was possible to have a 150-year-old man acting more youthfully than even he himself did.

"He wants us to steal WHAT?" asked Hermione shrilly, her eyes bursting with incredulousness. Harry and Neville winced at the volume. They had gathered in Neville's quarters to plan for the capture of Fletcher.

"You heard me," said Harry evenly.

"I don't believe this!" she said, starting to pace up and down; looking as if steam was coming out her ears as she was thinking.

"Did Albus really suggest this?" asked Neville dubiously.

"He did indeed," confirmed Harry, "and you have to admit, he's known Fletcher for a long time. Apparently what we are going to steal is something Fletcher has coveted for over fifty years. It's in fact, the very reason that he was in the Order of the Phoenix and in Albus's debt. Apparently Fletcher made an attempt to steal it sometime during the late 1960s and he was caught…Albus smoothed things over and managed to arrange a pardon after only three months in Azkaban. Using this life debt, Albus conscripted Fletcher into the Order to keep an eye on the criminal underworld during the first War."

"There has to be another way," said Hermione resolutely.

"If you have a better suggestion Hermione, I'm all ears," said Harry wryly. "It's been two weeks and a lot of people have been looking for him with no success…time is a luxury we cannot afford. The last Horcrux must be found as soon as possible, this is fastest course towards that goal."

"Ok, say we do this," said Neville, looking warily at Hermione as she glared at him for suggesting it, "do we even know what protections are installed around it?"

"The best security money can buy, at least from a non-magical perspective," said Harry thoughtfully, "and there are magical wards as well, placed there since before we separated ourselves from the non-magical world during medieval times."

"So it's not going to be easy," concluded Neville.

"Not by any stretch of the imagination," said Harry grimly.

"Can't we bring the owners in on this?" said Hermione plaintively, now looking resigned. For she knew that when Harry put his mind to something…not much would stop him. "I'm sure if we just explained…"

"The whole point is to make it appear as a genuine robbery," said Harry patiently, "we can't afford for it to look too easy. The press is sure to get wind of it and it will be international headlines the next day in both magical and non-magical worlds. So no matter where Fletcher has hidden himself, he will hear of it. It will either flush him out to Albus' contacts…who will be keeping an eye on international travel…or we will tell the Goblins to drop hints to the underworld that we'll be holding a little auction. But don't worry Hermione, we'll be sure to return it to its rightful place once we have Fletcher in our grasp."

**London, England…**

It was founded nearly a millennium ago, and expanded on in the centuries since. It has protected, housed, imprisoned and been for many the last sight they would see in this life. It has been the sight of the British Government and the living quarters of the monarch's…the sight of renown political intrigue…it has also oddly been the home to lions, bears, and (to this day) flightless ravens…not to mention notorious traitors and framed members of court, lords, ministers, clergymen and knights.

This was the Tower of London.

And incidentally it was also home to Crown Jewels…

"It's located in East London on the boundaries of the boroughs of Stepney and the City of London," said the earnest looking Tour guide, with his slightly balding head glinting in the sun overhead and his gray hair immaculate and tweed suit. To Harry's eye he carried an aura of confidence of a man who knew his subject and has been doing this for a very long time.

Harry glanced in amusement at Neville; who was looking uncomfortable in his normal clothing of a casual shirt and jeans, apparently he felt it was too tight and he could be occasionally seen waddling slightly. Hermione of course, was quite comfortable in her spaghetti strap sundress that showed off her beauty rather well…a few of the younger guys in the tour group were giving her interested looks. Thereby Harry was rather confused as he felt himself getting irritated and possessive at their ogling.

He put it out of his mind as the Tour group was now walking along the pedestrian route across Tower Bridge.

"To the east of the Tower you can see St Katherine's docks," continued the tour guide. "And the Tower of London dominates the river approaches to the City of London; as a reminder to those entering of where you might end up if you came here with…less than honest intentions."

The tour group crossed the bridge and paused across the street from where the outer wall of the Tower was in rather prominent view.

"The Tower of London is the oldest palace, fortress and prison in Europe," said the tour guide neutrally, though there was a hint of pride in there. "The great fortress was originally created by William the Conqueror. The site he chose was the same site on which Claudius, a Roman Emperor, had built a fort over a thousand years earlier…remnants of this fort is still visible in the Tower."

"As king succeeded king, additions were made…the fortress was enlarged by building walls and smaller towers around the central keep. Towards the end of the twelfth century, Richard the First added to its defensibility by building a moat around it, which was fed by the River Thames. Unfortunately," the tour guide now sported an amused look, "the engineers of the time got it wrong. With the rising of the tide the moat should have been flushed out, but the elevation was incorrectly calculated. The result that the water in the moat was not flushed and eventually the sewerage and water stalled in it and the smell…well, apparently it even added to the defensibility since no one would dare go for a swim." Some among the tour group chuckled and shuddered theatrically. "The moat was drained in 1830 and the amount of human remains found made it obvious that some did indeed try to brave the moat…and failed."

"As you can see, the Tower of London is roughly square in shape with two lines of defensive walls enclosing the Great White Tower in the centre…"

Harry listened only with half an ear from that point on as the group crossed the street and they were escorted through a visitor's entrance gate. He opened his mind to the Universe and saw that the Tower did indeed have an Anti-Apparation and Anti-Portkey Ward extending around to the boundaries…one which was rather old. The wards, unlike Hogwarts, were hardly as powerful…since a similar concentration of power would've interfered with electronics.

"As you can see," said the guide, "we're entering at the base of Tower Hill, and this gate is where prisoners were handed over to the Sheriff of London"

The group continued forward and now other visitors and tourists were seen milling about, their noses in brochures, their digital cameras around their necks or in their hands and taking snaps. Multitudes of nationalities and ethnicities were on display as well. Harry looked around and saw that they were now walking along a small causeway and prominent ahead was a tower with an arched passageway between and overhead were ancient portcullises.

They crossed the moat, which was now a healthy green lawn and eventually entered through yet another Tower, this one called the Byward Tower. Harry eventually found himself standing within the Outer Ward. To the left was Mint Street (once housed the Royal Mint) and they continued walking along Water Lane.

Finally, they entered the Inner Ward, and with Bell Tower in the background the group walked down the inner street toward the central forward area of the complex.

"Anything?" whispered Hermione from beside him.

"Beside a rather weak ward around the general area…nothing," said Harry softly.

Finally, after numerous little stops to explain this history of a particular gate or area or Tower, they arrived at the White Tower; 90 feet high, standing at ground level it made for a particularly impressive sight, of course it had nothing on Hogwarts. Above the battlements on the upper levels rose four turrets, one at each corner of the Tower. The entrance to the tower was reached by an external staircase, as there were no doors at ground level…again to disadvantage any invader.

The first thing they encountered, and here the Tour Group paused again, was the Tournament Room. It contained an amazing collection of armor dating from the Middle Ages all the way to 1914; they next walked to an adjacent room containing a collection of ancient hunting weapons, from old flintlocks to crossbows.

They ascended a set of staircases and they finally arrived in the room that housed what they were looking for. The room itself was long rectangular in shape, with a highly polished wood linoleum floor and various square display cases of different sizes placed evenly around the floor space.

In the central, most prominent display case was their bait. Harry, Hermione and Neville stood just a few feet away from it and gazed at the Crown Jewels rather ambivalently – this was one of those moments you realize that you are about to do something that you never imagined doing…ever.

Most prominent in the display, was the Imperial State Crown; this is what was worn by monarchs at their coronation; the most prominent gems in the crown was a beautiful sapphire in the cross patte above the monde and just above the rim was a blood red ruby and countless smaller diamonds that sparkled all over in the lighting of the room. While priceless…this was not their target and not Mundungus Fletcher's Holy Grail. Harry tore his eyes away from the Crown to look below it.

The Royal Scepter is what called to the thief's greedy heart. It was a rod of chased gold, with an extremely large peerless diamond called the 'Star of Africa' held in a heart shaped mount. Above this was an amethyst with a diamond-encrusted cross set with an emerald. Harry was rather surprised as he gazed with his mind's eye at the Scepter.

"Hermione, was a wizard at any point on the throne of England?"

"Umm…let me think," she said thoughtfully, "oh yes, the last was Aethelred the Unready, he ruled around 979 AD. According to official wizarding history at least, he was the last wizard to sit on the throne."

"But you doubt this is true?" he said softly, he had caught the skeptical tone of voice she used.

"There had to have been a few wizards or witches to turn out in the various bloodlines of Royals over the past thousand years," she argued in a whisper. "But this was around when Hogwarts was founded and one of the prime reasons for it's founding was that Muggles began to fear and distrust us. I think that any Royal that developed magical talent was either kept from attending Hogwarts or they did so under an assumed identity; as such there would be no official record of them. Why do you ask?"

"Because the Royal Scepter is a magical foci," said Harry easily.

"You're kidding," said Hermione with wide eyes. He shook his head.

"You mean it's a wand?" asked Neville in confusion.

"Not really," said Harry, "a Scepter can't be used as you would a wand, it requires the same mental dexterity required to wield a staff…"

"So it's just a short version of a staff," concluded Hermione. He nodded. "What security do you see?"

"Non-magical or Magical?"

"Magical…"

"There's a rather complex Alarm Ward tied to the normal security systems set to go off if excess magic levels are detected," said Harry, looking around the glass case, "rather ingenious, whichever wizard did it managed to find a perfect blend between electronics and magic…I'd almost call it Technomagic…"

"I thought magic and technology were mutually exclusive," whispered Neville.

"Hardly," said Harry, thinking of nearly every piece of Ancient technology he'd come across. "You just have to have the right level of technology to channel magic, though this is clearly not the case here…no, this wizard managed to cast just enough power and complexity in the ward at a low enough level to still allow electronics to function normally alongside it."

"That's not a very strong ward then," said Hermione.

"It's not designed to keep a wizard out," said Harry thoughtfully, staring at the magical energy of the ward as it flowed through the display case, "ah…quite amazing, the ward is there as a lure…any disruption by a wizard trying to break it and the standard alarms are tripped, sealing off this room with heavy metal gates…trapping anyone inside."

"And there's no Apparation or Portkey's out…so you're in trouble," said Hermione.

"The wards here might keep your average wizard from apparating, but as I've demonstrated I am hardly a normal wizard," said Harry with airy smile.

"Quite," said Hermione dryly. "But what about the non-magical security?"

"There are miniature cameras at strategic points all around the room," said Harry, his eyes closed. Hermione had no idea how he could be possibly be sensing the technology in the room. "There are vibration sensors on the floors, microphones to detect any sound, thermal sensors that detects the body heat of a person…oh and a weight sensor underneath the crown jewels that will register if there is any disturbance to the jewels themselves."

"No wonder Fletcher was caught," said Hermione in awe, "there's no way he could've pre-empted all those security systems…even with magic."

"So how are we going to do it?" asked Neville despondently.

Harry opened his eyes and a smirk developed on his face.

**Later that evening…**

Hermione and Neville stood atop one of high walkways of Tower Bridge that looked down upon the Tower of London. In the evening the Tower was lit with great floodlights that shone from the ground up and made everything look even more beautiful and majestic than it already did. The area they stood on was closed to the public at this late hour, and as such they had merely apparated to this point…and waited.

They were rather miffed at Harry.

His plan for stealing the Crown Jewels didn't give them anything to do…they were no more than spectators at a Quidditch game. The only possible situation that they could do anything was in the unlikely event that Harry was captured. Two hours ago they had all three stood atop Tower Bridge and Harry had told them to stay here and in that moment he was gone with barely a sound of Apparition.

"How long has it been?"

"Three minutes since the last time you asked," said Hermione irritably, twirling her wand absentmindedly through her fingers.

"It's taking too long," declared Neville shortly.

"Neville," said Hermione in exasperation, "Harry has to fool a complex set of Muggle devices without tripping the Alarm ward, in other words, he can't use too much magic or the wards raise the alarm, but he needs magic to fool the devices."

"Isn't that like a Turkey or the egg problem…"

"It's chicken or the egg," said Hermione with a sigh, "and yes, that's a good analogy, but the trick is to find a balance."

Silence descended among the pair again as fifteen minutes passed.

"How long has it been?"

Hermione was on the verge of charming Neville's voice away…when a figure appeared out of thin air in the darkness to their right along the walkway. There was a brief flash of light from the motorway below that allowed them catch sight of Harry's face. It also allowed them to partially make out his figure…and for a moment Hermione thought that he was naked! But the next moment she thought she must have imagined it, because he walked forward and was dressed in black as night wizard's robes.

"Harry!"

"Hey guys," said Harry distractedly, staring down at the Tower.

"Did you get it?" asked Neville.

"Oh…yes, of course," he said, and turned back to them and pulled out of his large robe pocket a foot long thin bundle wrapped in white cloth. He carefully unwrapped it and there, as beautiful as it was behind the glass of the display case, was the Royal Scepter in his hands. They admired it for a few moments and Harry wrapped it again and pocketed it in his robes. "And now…" he said, turning to look at the White Tower, he raised his hand and flicked his fingers…there was a brief flash of sparks from his hand…

The Tower of London was suddenly lit up to three times its normal level of lighting and soon distant figures could be seen sprinting towards the White Tower from all over the grounds, converging on it. Hermione was rather surprised that no wailing alarm had gone off; then again, it was most likely a silent alarm…not a minute later numerous police vehicles streamed towards the Tower…their sirens also conspicuously off.

"Harry, what did you do?" asked Hermione curiously.

"Well, I conjured a golf ball and let it hover in mid air over the floor from two meters up…" he explained with a grin.

"And when you flicked your fingers…you ended the spell?" asked Neville.

"Indeed," said Harry.

They watched the bustling of security forces that had flooded over the Tower of London grounds for a few moments before Harry decided that it was best to leave. He placed a left hand on Hermione's shoulder and his right on Neville's and all three vanished into thin air.

"I must admit I had a few doubts as to whether you would be successful, Harry," said Albus, who was now for the first time in a long while out of his sick bed and seated on a lazy boy chair. The old wizard had carefully unwrapped the Scepter and was admiring it from different angles, whilst still keeping it partially covered in the white cloth, to stop his hands from smudging the fine gold finish of the ancient magical foci.

"Why?" said Harry with a curious frown.

"My dear young wizard," said Albus with a fond chuckle, "I'm the one who was approached to ward these jewels from magical thieves in the first place."

"Should've known," grumbled Harry. "That kind of magical Paradox trap is exactly your style…make the ally (in this case, magic) of an enemy his own worst enemy."

"Indeed," said Albus, his eyes twinkling in mirth, "and I would surely like to know how you fooled my clever little trap."

"And you should know," said Harry mock-chidingly, "that a wizard should never reveal his own work and secrets."

"Too true," chuckled Albus, his eyes now turned to the Scepter, "oh, how Ollivander would've liked to be here now…"

"I take it the original Scepter was made by one of his ancestors," stated Harry, inviting elaboration. Ollivander the wand maker was now missing for five years running. He had disappeared before the Sixth Year of Clone Harry's education at Hogwarts. Initially it was thought that Riddle and his Death Eaters had captured him, but later intelligence from a Death Eater defector showed that Riddle was also in the dark as to the wand maker's whereabouts. It was then clear that Ollivander had hidden himself to prevent his person from being kidnapped and his services used by Riddle to give an advantage of to the Dark side; if that happened then the loss of a wand for a Death Eater would be inconsequential, but the same for a Resistance wizard would be a severe blow. Harry could only admire the wand maker for his foresight, he had taken himself out of the equation and kept both sides on a level playing field.

"Yes," nodded Albus, "though what we see here is not the original Scepter, since most of the diamonds was not discovered until this century…it's still fully functional as a magical foci, as it should be…this Scepter is what is used by the Royal family to detect if any child born into the line has magical potential." Albus lowered the Scepter and wrapped it up again. "But its beauty is not why we stole it…from tomorrow, when the theft hits the news, my contacts will be keeping an eye out for Mundungus. If they hear or see nothing in a week, then I will ask the Goblins to place word out that the thief of the Scepter is accepting bids for it…in that case you, Harry, will need to assume the alias of the thief when the auction takes place."

"Very well," nodded Harry.

The following morning the news of the theft hit the news media with the force of a storm. All over the UK there was a feeling of anger that anyone dared to do such a thing…this feeling was most prominent in the Royalist supporters, those ambivalent were outraged in a fit of patriotism…since the Jewels were a symbol of the country, democrats or anti-monarchs simply shrugged and while they condemned the theft and mourned at the loss (due to their historic value) they didn't really care.

For the next week, Harry, Neville and Hermione, went out on nearly daily raids against any target they could find. Any magical business that was willingly in cahoots in with Riddle and financing him became the victims of strange fires that consumed the property and its merchandise despite numerous wards to prevent such occurrences and intrusions. In actual fact, before the fire was started, Harry would place beacons on anything that would benefit the resistance and it would be transported out by the _Achilles_ in orbit and he would let them materialize just before the Transporter Rings on top of Glastonbury Tor…where they would be Ringed down. The goods included anything from food to Foe Glasses, and other things that they didn't want the Dark side to benefit from.

On other nights they would merely 'buzz' the homes of known Death Eaters. This involved either tripping an outer magical ward or merely attempting to break the ward…either way, it would instantly become known to the occupants of the home that it was under attack. They would summon help from other Death Eaters and just as they apparated in Harry, Hermione and Neville would apparate out. Similarly, the Aurors would do the same at numerous other locations at specific times.

Harry found it hilarious to watch through the night as the Death Eaters nearly howled in frustration at what appeared to be another false alarm.

'Buzzing' became a favorite sport for Fred and George Weasley (though they took it dead seriously that they were dealing with deadly opponents), the infamous, notorious, twins and pranksters of the Resistance; who would use numerous magical items of their own invention to make the Death Eaters lives that much more chaotic. Imagine coming out of your home in the morning only to find that the area around your house has been turned into a massive swamp with crocodiles, deadly snakes and all a manner of stinging insects. Or that that new hairbrush you just bought caused your hair to shrivel out. Or to find that that pumpkin juice bottle you bought had been laced with a magical glamour that made it appear as if you were Voldemort himself and it lasted for a week.

Finally, a week had come and gone, and there was still no sign of Mundungus Fletcher.

Therefore, Albus' plan B had come into effect and not a day later, an incognito Goblin had informed one of his contacts in the criminal underworld that the Scepter was to be auctioned by the thief in a week. The place of the auction was not revealed, except that any prospective bidder had to be at the statue of Admiral Nelson in front of Buckingham Palace on early Monday morning. This served the purpose of keeping things civil…, as no one would dare start a magical battle in the middle of London rush hour traffic. Because if you placed a bunch of magical thieves and criminals in close proximity…it wouldn't be long before an old rivalry would flare and cause a major scuffle.

And so it was, that on Monday morning, at exactly eight o'clock, that eight wizards and three witches congregated at the Statue of the famous Naval Admiral that had defeated the Spanish Naval Armada. All of them had their hoods up to conceal their identities and they glanced at each other warily, all their hands visible and at their sides so as to not give away the impression that they might be reaching for a wand.

Now such a congregation of wizards and witches would…on any other day, attract odd glances from any passing Muggles. Who were those people who dressed in dark colored robes? Who wore hooded cloaks these days? But it was immediately clear to the more magically talented of the group that someone had did some preparation for this initial meeting…as there was a Muggle Eye Repelling ward on the immediate area around the statue. Anyone non-magical looking at Nelson's statue would know it was there, but their eyes would not be able to focus on it and their gaze would slide past it.

This was immediately apparent as a Garbage man who poked at rubbish with a sharp stick passed within a few centimeters of the wizards and witches and didn't see them at all. The Garbage man did his job and walked off.

The assembled group's nervous watch on each other was interrupted as a wizard apparated within their midst…a wizard that in an obvious display of magical skill, made naught a sound as he appeared. He wore ubiquitous black robes and had an overlarge hood that concealed his face. The black wizard raised his hands to show no wand was in them.

"Greetings," said the wizard.

"Who are you?" said one of the witches without preamble.

"That is not important," said the black wizard dismissively.

"You most certainly are not part of the community," stated one of the other wizards, this one wearing purple robes. "Our reputation is of utmost importance to us, through the Thieves Guild we all at least know of each other through our aliases…and a general idea of each others' skill. The skill to rob the Scepter is not found on the British Isles and your accent definitely suggests you hail from here."

"My, my," chuckled the black wizard appreciatively. "You lot, are clever…you would have to be. But if you doubt my intentions…why would you come at all?"

"Fresh blood is always welcome in the Guild," said another wizard with a shrug. "And a chance to bid for the Scepter is too good to pass up."

"Yes, well…we have a little problem there," said the black wizard lightly.

"Problem? What problem?" said one of the wizards.

The black wizard snapped his fingers at one of the witches. This witch had a dumpy look to her and was wearing wrinkled brown robes and a few strands of long gray hair could be seen poking out of her hood. The witch in question snapped as straight as a washboard and fell face forward onto the ground. As the event dawned on the assembled witches and wizards, wands sprang into hand from sleeve holsters and bore down upon the black wizard.

Harry sighed and with but a come hither gesture of his hands all the wands aiming at him shot out of their owners hands and landed at his feet.

"Peace!" he shouted at the group.

"Peace?" shouted a thief incredulously. "You attack one of our own and expect us to sit idly by? How do we know we're not the next one to be wandlessly petrified?"

"Simple," said Harry and in front of every witch and wizard there was a flash of white light and ten sacks of gold appeared, in each was a thousand Galleons. "A recompense for the inconvenience of my ruse." They warily lifted the bags and opened them.

"You stole the Scepter…just to lure her here?" asked another thief shrewdly.

"Indeed," was all Harry said, and with sweep of his hand the wands at his feet flew back to their respective owners. "Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for your interest in the Scepter, but it is not for sale. It will be returned to its rightful owners and given even more protection. You may now go back to whatever misdeeds you had planned for the day."

The ten remaining magicians, obviously not wanting to further inconvenience such a powerful wizard, promptly disapparated on the spot. Harry turned to the prone witch and sighed with disappointment.

"Really, Mundungus, reusing disguises are we," he said wryly, "it wouldn't have mattered anyway if you were disguised effectively…I can smell that distinctive tobacco you use a mile away."

The witch remained silent.

"Oh yes, of course, how silly of me, you can't talk," said Harry theatrically. He pulled back on the hood of the witch and saw how the long gray hair was loose now and clearly a wig. He flung the wig away to reveal the familiar scruffy hair that he remembered Fletcher possessed. Harry turned over the petrified body and stared into that grubby old face that usually had an old smoking pipe in its mouth. The old thief's eyes were glaring daggers. "Relax, an old acquaintance of yours just wants to have a little chat. Then you will be free to leave."

Harry conjured a blindfold around Fletcher's eyes and willed the ward around the statue away, next he grabbed Fletcher by the crook of the elbow and both men vanished.

**Resistance HQ, Albus' Quarters.**

Harry guided Fletcher to sit on a wooden stool that faced the lazyboy Albus was seated on. He conjured a backless chair of his own and sat down a meter away from Fletcher facing his side. Harry would let Albus take the lead in the questioning, since there was always a chance the thief could deduce who Harry was by the nature of the questions and by what he knew of Fletcher…as it was Harry thought that he had said too much by telling Fletcher how he had been identified.

Albus raised his wand and the blindfold vanished off Fletcher's eyes.

"Hello, Mundungus," said Albus genially.

"Dumbledore," said Fletcher in a disgruntled fashion. "Doing better I see."

"Ah yes, my powers and health are returning, thank you for your concern," said Albus with an eye twinkling grin. "And how have you been faring?"

"Busy," grunted Fletcher, folding his arms defensively and looking around the room.

"And just what have you been busy doing besides hiding from me and everyone else after you began treating Harry's inheritance with light fingered contempt?"

"Not much," said Fletcher, some anger leaking into his voice.

"A tiresome and lonely existence it is to hide from everyone," said Albus solemnly. "Not to mention…unprofitable."

"What do you want, Dumbledore?" said Fletcher pointedly, it seemed he was in no mood for the usual small talk Albus would engage in.

"Ah yes, time is of the essence, isn't it," commented Albus lightly. "To put it simply, I wish to extend you an offer. You can come out of hiding from me and my associates around the world, without fear of detainment, pursuit or prosecution from Ministries outside of Britain…you can start your life again in a country of your choosing…since I doubt you wish to remain on the Isles while all this unpleasantness is going on."

"And what do you want in return?"

"An item that may or may not be in your possession or you will at least know who has it," said Albus seriously.

"That's all?" asked Fletcher, looking suspicious and skeptical.

"Indeed, that's all I require of you," commented Albus.

"What item?"

Albus raised his wand and gave it a little twirl. Just above Fletcher's lap there was a slight flash of light and out of thin air a replica of Slytherin's Locket appeared hovering in mid-air, it began to slightly rotate to show the prominent 'S' on the Locket to the thief.

"Oh…that," said Fletcher and looked away from the replica hovering in front of him. Albus gave his wand another flick and the replica vanished.

"Where is it?" asked Albus simply.

"Why d'you want it?"

"You do not need to know," replied Albus with a slight trace of insistence in his voice. "This is a simple barter trade, your freedom…for this, not an exchange of information."

"That's a Founder's Heirloom, Dumbledore," snapped Fletcher in return. "Salazar wore that around his neck…it's value is almost priceless…"

"Freedom when it's not possessed is just as priceless, if not more so," countered Albus. Fletcher hesitated with his comeback for a moment. But Harry felt a flare of inward triumph…so Fletcher still had it.

"No…I'll only consider giving it…if you tell me why you want it…"

"Mundungus," said Albus softly, "that knowledge is too dangerous. Before I would even consider telling you the barest of facts I would require your Unbreakable Vow that you will not release this information." Harry was slightly surprised that Albus was willing to compromise in this fashion…but in retrospect, if the destruction of the second to last Horcrux required their revelation to Fletcher, then it was a risk worth taking. The Unbreakable Vow was an oath sworn on the powers and very life of a wizard…if the wizard violated the oath in any way it meant instant death.

Fletcher gazed shrewdly at Albus.

"This has something to do with You-Know-Who," stated Fletcher. Albus didn't answer nor did he allow his face to betray anything to confirm or deny Fletcher's statement. The thief stared at the old wizard for a long time and seemed to be debating something with himself while he was staring at Albus. Eventually, Fletcher sighed and look away from Albus' gaze…only to turn to Harry, "Be our bonder."

Harry was amazed that Fletcher would agree to an Unbreakable Vow…for a person in his profession it was unheard of…but there had been more than a battle of wills going on when the two elder wizards had stared at each other. Harry stood as Fletcher did and the thief joined his right hand to Albus' left, he placed his own hand just over the joined hands.

Harry nodded at Albus and with but a thought he brought forth his own power and reached out to the Universe around him as well…this would make the Oath even stronger.

"Will you, Mundungus Fletcher, conceal and protect the information I will give you after this Oath is cast, even under torture and pain of death?" said Albus seriously.

"I will," said Fletcher. There was a flash and from Harry's hand a thick band of blue power shot out and bound their hands…it lingered for a few moments and seemed to fade into their joined hands.

"So mote it be," said Harry, distorting his voice and withdrawing his hand.

"Well, Mundungus, I suggest you settle down," said Albus with a sigh as they broke the grip they had on each other.

Fletcher sat down and leaned forward to listen intently.

"The locket is simply…a key," said Albus carefully, it seemed as if he was carefully weighing each word before they left his mouth. "It is a key to the final destruction of Voldemort."

Fletcher shuddered visibly at hearing the dreaded name, but his eyes became as big as saucers as his mind comprehended what Albus said.

"What?"

"Slytherin's Locket was found many years ago by the wizard we would eventually come to know as Voldemort," explained Albus darkly. "And he enchanted it to carry a piece of his own soul, it became a Horcrux. They act as anchors that hold him tethered to this existence. If anyone managed to kill him now, his spirit would simply be disembodied to a spectral existence, much like a ghost…and all that would be needed was another restoration ritual and he would be back as if nothing had happened to him."

"You…you…you can't be serious Dumbledore…that's…that's beyond compare…horrible…it's not…" said Fletcher spluttering.

"You cannot base an Unbreakable Vow on a lie," said Albus calmly. "Before Voldemort can be finally conquered the Horcrux needs to be destroyed."

Fletcher suddenly looked frightened out of his wits and reached into his pocket to retrieve a small wooden box that had an ornate finish to it. The old thief's hands were shaking as he struggled to open what Harry saw was a box that was enchanted and keyed to Fletcher's own magical signature…a personal Strong Box of sorts. Finally the lid was opened and for a moment it looked like Fletcher would drop it…but he regained his grip and reached in and his entire hand disappeared into the box…clearly it had much bigger inner dimensions. The thief rummaged around inside and a hurried frustration began to appear on his face. His expression froze and suddenly he pulled his hand out and unceremoniously flung something to the floor.

Harry leaned down and picked it up. It was a heavy golden locket. He let it hang in the light from its chain and as the locket turned he could see the ornate, serpentine 'S' on its face. He gave a gesture with his other hand and the locket glowed a strong blue…there was indeed a soul bound to this.

"Are you done? Can I go now?" asked Fletcher gruffly.

"Hermione!" called Albus. She entered at a brisk pace wearing her gray robes. "Please blindfold Mundungus and escort him out." She pulled out her wand and after checking the visual obstruction to see if it was complete led him by the arm out of the room and closed the door behind her. "Allow me, Harry," said Albus gesturing to the Locket.

Harry wordlessly handed it over. "That was a rather ingenious use of his fear of Riddle. Any ideas on how to destroy it?"

"Each Horcrux is unique, the enchantments and protections on it differ greatly," said Albus, "Tom would do this purposefully to further thwart any wizard who realized what his protections against death were and managed to retrieve them. I have a lot of time on my hands and will begin research immediately into how it can be done. I suggest you rejoin your friends and continue your efforts at undermining Tom's hold on Britain in the meantime."

"Very well," nodded Harry, "but…when the time comes I must be the one to destroy it. Just be glad that my Healing device was capable of restoring your hand." Harry pointed to the limb in question. It had been gravely injured in Clone Harry's Sixth Year at Hogwarts, when Albus had retrieved Slytherin's Ring and destroyed the Horcrux that it contained.

Albus only nodded and began to study the Locket intently. Harry reluctantly left intending to find Neville so that they could plan their next move.

_A/N: If there are any inaccuracies with regards to the Tower of London scenes, I apologize, I've never been there and all scenes were referenced from an online tour. Yes, I know the Crown Jewels are currently in a Barracks on the grounds and not in the White Tower…but it's my story. I also apologize if I've offended anyone by depicting the theft of their national treasures…so don't flame me. (Although technically, the world's largest cut diamond that is set in the Royal Sceptre was actually found on South African soil. But we were all a happy Commonwealth at the time and we gifted it to the Royal Family) _


	18. Chapter 18

_**Chapter Eighteen – The Board is Set**_

Resistance HQ, Glastonbury Tor

Harry walked with Neville down a tunnel passage in the very heart of the underground tunnel network, after a few twists and turns the tunnel opened up into a large room that was echoing with activity. All along one side of the room was a long line of desks, behind which, each sat a Goblin with magical paper planes hovering overhead waiting for attention and numerous thick books in front of them and various leafs of parchment; all the Goblins were intently studying them and making notes and passing it to another Goblin that would walk between the desks. Harry watched as the walker moved across the room to the other side…where a flat table was.

Harry and Neville approached this table, around which a few other wizards were congregated…most of them Aurors. On the table was a gigantic map of the British Isles, but this was no ordinary map; it showed every single bit of magical activity that was occurring. He watched as the Goblin now approached the table and twiddled his long fingers…the result was that a black spot appeared on the map somewhere in Scotland with a question mark next to it. Harry didn't know what that meant…but judging from the amount of black spots it was probably a point of suspected Death Eater activity. This was the War Room.

"Ah, Neville, there you are," said the dark skinned Auror, Kingsley Shacklebolt, who was nominally in charge of the Aurors, at least in the field. "How is Albus faring?"

"He's walking around for short stretches now," said Neville with a grin, "though Madam Pomfrey has ordered him to stay put…even threatened to put a ward on the room to keep him in."

"She's dreaming if any ward can keep him put," said Kingsley wryly. "Anyway, I don't think we have time for small talk." Kingsley took out his wand and tapped it on the map on a large dot that represented London. The map rapidly redrew itself to show a grid layout of London. Kingsley tapped it again and it zoomed in further to a view of Central London. "Tonks has missed her scheduled check in."

"She's assigned to keep an eye on the Prime Minister isn't she?" asked Neville.

"Yes," nodded Kingsley, "she took over from me when I had to take over as Head of the Auror Corps. She's better at it than I am, considering her Metamorphmagus skills."

"How long overdue is she?"

"Four hours," said Kingsley, "and that's rather lax for her. She may be somewhat clumsy, but she's not stupid. She would not deviate from contact protocols. In addition, we detected some rather suspect spellwork done near 10 Downing Street."

"No Unforgivables?"

"None that we could detect," said Kingsley pointing at the magical map on the table, "however, a recent interrogation of a captured Death Eater revealed that he knew how to cast some form of Magical Diffusion Spell to shield his spellwork from our detection. Now…I don't think any form of Diffusion could be strong enough to prevent us from seeing a Killing Curse or a Cruciatus, but an Imperius is another matter entirely."

"So you want me to discreetly check out 10 Downing?"

"Yes," nodded Kingsley, "The Floo node into 10 Downing has been permanently disabled, so you'll have to apparate and walk in. I trust we don't have to go into further details?"

"No," said Neville, "I'll send a Patronus to you directly once I've found out what is happening."

Kingsley nodded and Neville turned and walked out of the room, Harry following in his wake.

"I suggest we dress ourselves in formal office attire," said Harry.

"How do you mean?"

Harry gestured with his hand towards himself and with multiple swishes of transfiguration his robes turned into a formal gray three-piece suit with an emerald tie that wouldn't be out of place in any major corporation or bank.

"Oh," said Neville, and pulled out his wand, the result being that his robes were replaced with a darker almost black suit in similar style to Harry with a red tie. They stopped in at Albus' room to just let him know they were going out on assignment and wouldn't be back for a few hours…they needn't have bothered as the old wizard and Hermione had buried themselves in books to research a way to destroy the Slytherin Locket safely and could barely spare a glance their way.

"How on Earth do they keep track of what they've read?" asked Neville in bafflement as they headed towards the Ring room. "There's hardly space to put a foot down in that place without stepping on a book."

"Your guess is as good as mine," said Harry with a shake of the head; he'd hardly ever had the patience for books…and the Asgard hadn't used them in countless millennia.

**Downing Street, London.**

Harry and Neville approached the sealed off street that contained the Prime Minister's residence. Harry had no idea what protections were around Number 10, but he knew enough that he and Neville did not want to screw this up; he wouldn't be surprised if the SAS had a tactical unit on 24 hour readiness hidden in one of the houses on the famous street, not to mention any underground bunkers or secret complexes. Harry could probably take on an entire brigade if he really had to, but the collateral damage would be enormous and impossible to cover up.

"Ok, let's stop here for a moment," said Harry and they walked out of the flow of pedestrians and stopped against an alcove, he handed a leather flip-open wallet to Neville, "this will be your ID, you're an MI-5 agent; they deal with internal threats against the UK and the Crown. Just follow my lead and let me do the talking. You're my partner and if anyone asks you a question, direct them to me. Does the Resistance keep the Prime Minister up to speed?"

"Yeah, Tonks gives him a daily briefing on anything we think that they can help us on," nodded Neville.

"Good, that simplifies things immensely," said Harry with a considering frown.

They walked back into the flow of pedestrians and turned a corner to approach the massive barred gates that blocked entry to Downing Street. A single armed policeman stood at the pedestrian entrance of the gate; he was a tall figure with a posture that screamed military training, his black tactical vest was full to the brim with various essentials and prominent was a small radio mouthpiece clipped near his left shoulder. He was armed with an MP5 sub machine gun that was clipped to his tactical vest and rested his arms on it. His eyes continuously scanned for threats from right to left. This policeman was obviously the vanguard for the security forces in the area.

Harry could also make out visible closed circuit television cameras mounted on the surrounding buildings and focused on the policeman.

"Can I help you, sir?" asked the policemen in a level voice.

Harry raised his own leather wallet that contained his Diplomatic credentials, Neville followed suit next to him. Using some subtle telepathy, Harry managed to alter the policeman's perceptions enough that what he saw was two legitimate looking MI-5 identifications.

"I'm Smith," said Harry, "and this is Brown. We have a discrete appointment with the PM."

"Stand by," said the policeman and spoke into his radio. This was where the _Achilles_, which was maintaining a geo-synchronous orbit over the British Isles came into play. It's AI sent sophisticated pings to the computers in 10 Downing Street and using Subspace began to stream data into any and all computers it could find that pertained to the Prime Minister's schedule.

"They're cleared," came a crackling voice over the radio. The Policeman walked towards the pedestrian gate and nodded into what looked like a tiny camera that mounted in a hole in the wall. There was a powerful buzzing sound and the gate opened. Harry and Neville walked in and the policeman closed the gate behind them with a loud _clang_ and turned back to observing the traffic going past.

Downing Street had a limited number of pedestrians; of course, all of them were part of the Prime Minister's staff, going back and forth between the various houses on the street, going about the daily business of government. They approached Number 10's front door and before they could even knock, the door was opened and a young woman dressed in a white blouse and knee length gray skirt stood there and tapped away on a PDA.

"Mr Smith and Brown?" she asked politely, though there was a look of frustration on her face.

"That's us," said Harry and showed her his badge aided with telepathy.

"I'm sorry," she said with a sigh, "this PDA must be acting up, your appointment was lost somewhere and we only got wind of it when…that's strange…the date…" Harry subtly twirled his fingers in her direction and the result was, "…oh, never mind, you'll just have to wait half an hour. Follow me."

They walked into the house and were escorted to a rather comfortable sitting room with plush leather sofas and numerous paintings and portraits along the walls.

"Kindly wait here, I'll come for you when the Prime Minister is available," said the secretary, and walked off. Harry and Neville remained standing however.

"I thought Tonks was the secretary," said Neville in confusion.

"The Prime Minister has many secretary's," said Harry in turn, scanning the room and looking beyond with his eyes open to the Universe beneath the material world.

"Well, I don't think we can afford to wait half an hour," said Neville grimly. There was obviously more to be said, but it remained unsaid, as there was probably surveillance cameras and microphones watching and hearing their every move.

"I agree," said Harry, looking around the room. "But we have to wait nevertheless." Neville looked like he was going to object, but Harry stopped it by putting a hand on his friends' shoulder. Neville's eyes widened as his mind was given strange alien thoughts but then he realized they were coming from Harry. The realization brought them into focus and allowed him to make sense of the plan Harry had.

"Ok," nodded Neville. The half an hour wait was rather daunting for Neville, as he rarely could sit still when he knew there was something wrong or somebody in danger. Harry simply sat luxuriantly on his part of the sofa and even stretched his arms to lean them on the upper parts of the sofa; anyone looking would've thought that he was just lazing about, but his mind was open and watchful, trying to make sense of the ebbs and currents of the Universe around him. Finally, after forty minutes the secretary returned.

"Sorry about that, but the PM had a very important phonecall that ran longer than he expected, if you would follow me," she said, gesturing towards the door. Harry and Neville stood and walked in her wake. They passed through the main hallway, turned a few corners, passed through a few electronically secured doors that required a passcode…and finally they entered the outer office.

The outer office was a cozy square room with three large desks piled with paper and a computer, behind which each sat a secretary; two female and one male. The phones at the desks were ringing occasionally and the three secretaries would pick them up and attend to the caller; at the moment two of them were busy on the phones. Harry carefully studied the three. He had already ruled out that the escorting secretary was Tonks, so he studied them carefully. The lone male secretary was of average height, with hazel hair and eyes and a wiry build, his eyes caught sight of Harry and Neville and dismissed them immediately. It was conceivable that Tonks would impersonate a male; but it would be much harder to maintain such a disguise as opposed to a female one.

He turned to look at the two female secretaries to his left. The one closest to the door leading to the PM was slowly putting down her phone. This secretary had long red hair, a rather impressive bust and wore a black blouse…her face was oddly blank…as if she had lost all emotion. Harry narrowed his eyes and focused his mind's eye on her…she was definitely a witch. But her blank face raised warning alarms in Harry's mind…and the latest Death Eater capabilities intelligence.

That was all the warning he had before the red head secretary raised a wand.

"Look out!" shouted Harry and pushed the escorting secretary in front of him, as he did a backwards roll to avoid the green light of a Killing Curse that raced across the room and blasted a hole the size of a basketball in the wall; causing a plume of dust and debris to shoot out. Neville struck first as Harry regained his footing. A Stunning Spell shot towards the witch but was deflected. Harry cupped his hands and purple orbs of bright shining power gathered in them…Neville deflected a Severing Curse for Harry to buy time…Harry flung both hands forwards palms out…a jet of purple light shot from his left hand towards the witch…she shielded but the curse Harry was using caused her transparent dome of shield energy to buckle and warp…another purple jet of light shot now from his right palm and breached the witches' defense.

She was picked up off her feet by the force of the spell and slammed against the wall and fell to the ground…unconscious.

"What spell was that?" asked Neville, coughing from the dust and smoke.

"A Stunning Curse…that will provide guaranteed unconsciousness for as long as the caster desires and can't be countered by anyone other than the original caster," said Harry, wincing inwardly, it was really a pain to use wizard terminology to explain these things…so scientifically imprecise. "She'll be out for three hours." Harry looked around and saw that the other three secretaries were cautiously peeking out from behind their desks. "Obliviate them." Neville twirled his wand and three gray jets of light hit the secretaries on their foreheads, causing their eyes to lose focus.

Harry made a sweeping gesture with both his hands. Dust and debris stopped in mid-air…and as if someone had pressed the rewind button they reversed direction back towards the hole that was caused by the Killing Curse. The part of the wall where the witch had crashed against fixed itself and the overturned desks and papers and sheets flew back to their original positions. When he was finally done, the room had not a single scratch and there was no way to tell that their had just been a magical battle.

"Secure Tonks, while I speak to the PM," said Harry. Neville nodded and walked over to the witch, who had now reverted back to the original appearance of Tonks with black hair and the familiar heart shaped face. Harry opened the doors and walked into the Prime Ministers Office.

The Office was well appointed and large, with elegant bookcases along the walls and various artworks, including the small magical portrait in the bottom corner on the wall behind the large mahogany desk that had once allowed the Ministry to keep in contact with the non-magical government; but was since discontinued when its twin in the Minister for Magic's office was destroyed along with the rest of the Ministry. Behind the large desk sat the British Prime Minister, Tony Blair; who was at the moment clutching his head with his hands, his fingers threaded through his light brown hair that was graying on the sides. His eyes were closed and his expression was a mixture of anger and misery. Harry softly closed the door behind him; confident that Neville could handle things. They didn't really have to worry about the security forces…as the levels of power exchanged in the room would have blinded any cameras and when everything cooled down they would see the room unchanged, except that one secretary was missing (disillusioned by Neville).

"There was nothing you could do, Prime Minister," said Harry softly, standing in front of the large desk. "Precious few wizards have the strength to resist the curse you were under, let alone a non-magical person."

Tony Blair cracked open an eye to regard Harry. "Are you from the Resistance?" he asked in a hoarse voice.

"Yes indeed," said Harry, "and as you can tell by the fact that your own will has returned to you, Miss Tonks has been secured."

"What will happen to her?" asked the PM, letting his hands fall to the desk.

"She was under the curse herself, no punishment will come from our side, but my partner and I will have to conduct a thorough debriefing before she returns to HQ," explained Harry calmly. "However, we need to know what she ordered you to do?"

The PM winced and stood up from his chair to stare out the window. "It's been five days since I was robbed of my own will," he said with a sigh. "And in that time I've ordered reductions on spending in various sectors…defense, police. I even ordered monetary aid to various third world nations to be stopped and diverted into anonymous accounts, probably belonging to the dark wizards. I ordered emergency services to do be diverted from certain places to undergo more training…places that were attacked not a day later."

That explained the lack of response the Resistance had been witnessing lately with regards to non-magical emergency services.

"We are lucky then, that we stopped this as soon as we did," said Harry grimly. "All this can be quickly undone with a countermanding order from you, Prime Minister."

"Lucky," said the PM incredulously, shaking his head. "You have no idea…I was ordered…I…couldn't help it…"

"People died Prime Minister," said Harry softly, "yes, it's true, but the orders did not, I repeat, did NOT, come from you. It came from a dark wizard intent on manipulating you for their own benefit."

"Knowing that does not make me feel better," said the PM bitterly.

"You are human, your guilt is natural and a reflection of your good character," said Harry understandingly. "I've been involved in many battles Prime Minister, I've lost friends, colleagues and I ask myself constantly if I couldn't have done better, and then maybe they would still be alive today. But you realize in the fullness of time, that you couldn't have done more. There is no magical spell to take away emotion permanently, only to perhaps delay your feelings, but then it would return with a vengeance when the magic wore off. My only advice I can give you is to listen to appropriate music."

"Music?" said the PM incredulously. "Music will rid me of the aftereffects of a Curse?"

"It won't rid you of it," said Harry patiently, "it will soothe the heart and the other side-effects, and that is something no magician on this Earth could do for you."

There were three quick knocks on the door into the office and Harry turned and walked over to open it.

"Everything OK in here?" asked Neville, poking his head into the office.

"As well as can be expected," answered Harry.

"I just received a message from Kingsley, they detected the spell exchange and are on their way to take Tonks in," said Neville.

"Good, I'll finish things up in here," he said, and closed the door.

"The Resistance will send someone to replace Miss Tonks as soon as we are able, in the meantime," said Harry and held up his palm. There was a flash of light and a necklace appeared with a pendant of a clear crystal pyramid about an inch in size at the base and two inches in height. "Wear this…" Harry handed it over to the Prime Minister who looked at it curiously in the light coming from his windows.

"What is it?"

"That, Prime Minister, is a personal shield device," said Harry with a grin. "Wear it at all times, it will protect you from any spell cast by a wizard, except for a Killing Curse (green magic). It doesn't have infinite power, so it will stop five maybe six spells…depending on the power of the wizard attacking you. I suggest you carry an easily concealed firearm of some kind, so that when the shield does its job you can retaliate."

"Surely not," said the PM aghast. "If it became known that I carry a weapon…surely my security could then defend me…"

"Prime Minister," sighed Harry, "With a few spells a wizard could seal this room so securely that not even a SAS squad with all its specialist equipment could break in here. They could disrupt every electronic system in the building, blinding your security forces. Need I go on…"

"No, no, you've made your point, I'll do it," said the PM with frown.

"Good," said Harry, "Do you have any further questions?"

"No," said the PM, shaking his head.

"Then I should be going," said Harry, walking closer and shaking hands with him. "It was an honor to meet you, sir. I do believe that we'll meet again, perhaps in a year, or two."

"What do you mean?" asked the PM, but he saw he was now talking to empty air.

Resistance HQ, Glastonbury Tor

Harry walked the now familiar path toward Albus' quarters and caught the scent of something very pungent indeed. Walking inside he saw that a table was now set up in the middle of the room and a large stone basin was laid out on it. All the books that had littered the room were now gone. Albus himself was clad in light blue robes of shooting stars and was standing at the table looking down into the basin thoughtfully. Hermione stood on the other side of the table with the same pensive look on her face. A large thick book was open next to the basin and the script looked handwritten. The rest of the room was surprisingly bare; gone was the bed and the bookshelves and the tapestries. The Ancient Healing Device was now in HQ's hospital wing, aiding the health of those injured in the line of duty.

"Could it be that simple?" asked Albus.

"How does Riddle view Muggles and their methods?" reasoned Hermione. "He considers it beneath his notice. He would never think that a wizard would use this method to attack his precious Horcruxes. Albus, we have subjected the Locket to every scanning, diagnostic, and sensory spell known to wizards looking for some weakness in the Locket's enchantments…there is nothing. You of all people know the kind of magical genius that Riddle was and is."

"I do indeed know," said Albus with a sigh. "Could this be the simple answer to the riddle that seems impossible to solve?"

"Can I jump into this reasoning process?" asked Harry with a wry grin, walking toward the edge of the table.

"Oh, Harry," said Hermione, glancing at him. "You're back rather early."

"It went quickly," said Harry, and gave them a brief rundown of events at 10 Downing.

"And how is Tonks?" asked Albus sadly.

"She's fine, though a bit angry with herself for allowing a Death Eater to catch her unawares. The Death Eater released the Imperius when it became apparent we were tracing him or her through it, so no leads on that end," explained Harry with a disappointed sigh. "Anyway, what are you two debating about?"

"This book," said Hermione, pointing to the thick handwritten book, "is Albus' notes when he worked with Nicholas Flamel in the early 20th century. It highlights all the avenues of research they pursued to perfect the Philosopher's Stone."

"We had to keep track of what we had done already," shrugged Albus modestly. "One of the ideas I had was to bring everything Muggle science knew about Gold and its properties into our theories and research. Nicholas and I approached a Metallurgist Professor at Oxford and asked if we could…go to school again, as it were." He smiled fondly at the memory. "After a bit of 'financial' persuasion, he agreed. It was here that we learned of a rather ingenious method of refining gold without the need for extremely high temperatures and elemental spells. It's called 'Aqua Regia'."

"It's a method of refining gold by using two types of acids," explained Hermione, pointing towards to large containers under the table with obvious warning labels prominent on them and displaying… "nitric acid and hydrochloric acid. Now, my theory is that we take the Locket and immerse it first in nitric acid and then in hydrochloric. This will dissolve the gold that is present in the locket…destroying the Locket's structure…with the basis gone, the enchantments will not remain, since they were placed on the locket long after it was forged."

"Leaving it vulnerable to any kind of magical attack," concluded Harry.

"If this method works," said Albus with a raised finger, "if…then it must be decided what kind of attack to launch upon the locket." The old wizard considered Harry now with a grave look. "Are you still as capable as you were since you've retaken human form?"

"Are you asking whether I could still perform a Killing Curse?" said Harry with a frown. Albus nodded, his gaze serious. "I could do it, yes, but I have since learned of other attacks equally as lethal that would be far less…corrupting to the caster."

"Indeed," said Albus thoughtfully, his fingers combing through the long hair of his white beard, "you would be doing every Auror in the Resistance a favor if you taught them this weapon."

"I suppose I would," said Harry neutrally. "But you can understand my reticence, killing should not be made easier."

"Very true," said Albus with a tired sigh, "it was with great reluctance that I ordered a wartime rules of engagement for the Aurors. But we can't afford to hold ourselves back, it would give the enemy a too great advantage."

"You don't have to justify your decision to me, Albus," said Harry stridently, holding up his hands. "So, are we going to do it now or later?" he said, gesturing towards the Golden Locket that was lying at the bottom of the stone basin.

"Are you sure of the spell you're going to use?" said Hermione worriedly. "Once we start the process…there's no turning back."

"I'm sure," said Harry, gesturing for her to continue.

She pulled out her wand and with a few flicks a heavy-duty plastic apron; gloves and goggles appeared on her. She then cast a Ventilation Charm on the room that would obviously get rid of any fumes from the process. Harry and Albus backed away from the table as Hermione took the large book and placed it safely out of the way.

"OK," she sighed nervously, "here we go." With a flick of her wand the container of Nitric acid rose into the air and unsealed itself, she guided it over towards the basin and the Locket still lying inertly on the bottom. Ever so carefully, the container began to tip itself forward, and the acid began to pour into the stone basin. This continued until the basin was filled to the brim with the harmful chemical. Hermione guided the now empty container back to the floor.

"Now we wait for at least a half an hour," she said anxiously. Albus and Harry couldn't see what was happening to the Locket from where they were standing but soon enough brown fumes began to emerge from the basin, only to be swept away by the Ventilation Charm.

After twenty minutes Albus got tired and conjured himself a chair. But Harry had to remain vigilant…the acid was eating away at the natural impurities in the gold and in the process destroying the structure of Locket, meaning that the soul fragment could emerge with little warning.

When the half hour mark passed, Hermione carefully came closer to the basin and with a few waves of her wand the now stained and dirty acid was Vanished. Harry also came closer and inspected the Locket's condition…it was worn down quite substantially, the ornate Slytherin 'S' was gone, and gold had run off against the bottom of the stone basin so that the once round shape of the Locket was now more of an oval.

"Now for the Hydrochloric…" mumbled Hermione and repeated the process with the remaining container. When the new acid had settled into the basin they began to wait again. "Get ready, Harry, the Hydrochloric will begin react with the gold and the solution will become quite hot…the gold should begin to dissolve at this point."

Harry nodded and backed away from the basin to give himself some room. Hermione had the foresight to move and stand next to Albus, as both were behind Harry, giving him a clear line of sight on the basin. Harry cupped his hands and held out his arms, his eyes narrowed in focus as his mind concentrated and reached out to the Universe around him. This would be the first time that he would use this particular matrix…he could only hope that he could pull it off, as it was the most difficult and dangerous talent that the Alterrans had developed…in this plane of existence, anyway.

Whiffs of pure silver-white energy began to dance above Harry's hands…he gritted his teeth with visible effort…more energy began to appear, until there were two coherent orbs of light shining above each hand, no bigger than the size of a marble.

Harry groaned in effort to keep the matrix stable and filter the negative effects of drawing such energy. His hands were shuddering and taut under the strain. He had to fight the urge to close his eyes and direct all his focus to the matrix, he could not lose sight of the basin…if the soul fragment emerged when he had all his attention elsewhere it would be disastrous; as the fragment would want to try and possess the nearest vessel for itself it could find in an effort to remain. It would find Harry completely unsuitable, but the same could not be said for Hermione…who, while she did have the skill, she did not have the experience or the power to fight off such an attack.

Finally, after what seemed like a million years to Harry in terms of relative time, he had a stable matrix in both his hands. They were now the size of a tennis ball and glowed an ethereal silver-white that was nearly blinding in intensity. He let out a breath of relief…he only now had to maintain the field that contained the matrix…, which was relatively simple, compared to building the matrix itself.

"My goodness, Harry," said Hermione in awe, shielding her eyes from the glow of the two matrices. "What kind of spell is that?"

"A very difficult one," said a heavily breathing Harry, keeping his focus on the stone basin which was now visibly radiating heat, causing the lightwaves to ripple above its surface as it reached his eyes. Albus was looking at Harry with great concern.

"That must have been very taxing, my boy, are you all right?" he said gravely.

"I'll be fine, though I'll probably be consuming a five course meal afterwards and sleeping for a day," he quipped with a rue grin.

"Albus what did he do?" demanded Hermione. "I know your expressions well enough to guess that you have an idea."

Albus sighed and said, "While there were some parts of the spell that I did not understand, I saw enough to get the gist of what it is and just how powerful the effect would be, but it's difficult to find the words. It's as if Harry reached out into the very basis of reality and pulled energy to himself."

"But…" she began to object, looking alarmed.

"It is done, my dear," said Albus with stern finality. "Harry cannot simply let this spell fade out and go…the energy he has gathered must be used for the purpose he has in mind, to do otherwise would cause his death and the deaths of everyone in the British Isles if not further…"

Their conversation was interrupted by the sound of utmost, soul wrenching pain…

The stone basin flashed with power and in an instant the acid had been vaporized as the enchantments on the Locket exploded outward. Albus recognized the danger an instant before it happened…he berated himself for not foreseeing it. Harry was too busy maintaining the extremely powerful spells in his hands meant for the soul fragment to protect himself against the magical backlash of the enchantments freeing themselves and dissipating.

From his seated position his wand was out and he cast the strongest shield he knew and could perform on such short notice.

A solid wall of white magic appeared between the stone basin and Harry. Albus was surprised to note that Harry was not as encumbered as he believed. In fact, the next moment he felt the younger wizard add his own power to Albus' shield. It truly made him wonder just what were Harry's limits. By now, Hermione had reacted as well, and pointed her wand towards the shield wall and a jet of supporting magic joined in holding back the magical onslaught of the now broken Locket.

After a few seconds of this Harry began to wonder just how much bloody power Salazar Slytherin had put into the damn thing, which would have only increased over time, and then when Riddle got his greedy paws on it what more power had he added to it? The shield wall began to slightly shift towards Harry and there were points where it began to warp and wobble…but it seemed to hold.

After a prolonged struggle of nearly ten intense seconds the power of the enchantments on the Locket had been expended and returned to a natural state of equilibrium. Through the transparent shield wall they saw that the room beyond had nearly been carbonized and a good section of the rock walls had been turned to shiny hard glass fragments…Harry would hardly be surprised if he could dig up a diamond from the wall afterwards. The only thing beyond the barrier was an ethereal wraith that looked very familiar to Harry…memories of his Clones' first year confrontation with Riddle came to the forefront.

"Drop the shield!" shouted Harry frantically. An agonizingly slow moment later the white wall vanished and Harry wasted no time and flung the two matrices towards the wraith. The bright energy balls seemingly vanished into the formless wraith and for a moment…nothing happened.

Then there was another soul wrenching screech of pain. The wraith twisted in agonized knots in upon itself…it writhed and screamed…and then it was as if reality itself bent slightly and with flicker the soul fragment was no more…

Harry staggered backwards with the realization that another milestone of his journey had passed. He fell with a huff on his buttocks and felt extremely sleepy all of a sudden.

"I suggest you…find…Madam Pomfrey," said Harry, the exhaustion evident in his voice. "Explain to her the full truth…I won't be able to conceal myself…"

"Don't worry, my boy," said Albus, and Harry was distantly aware that the old man was kneeling next to him and holding him up. "Rest…you've done your part…"

Harry barely nodded and fell unconscious.

He felt consciousness return after an indeterminate amount of time. His kept his eyes closed and listened, his mind reaching out like a giant searchlight and after a few tense moments, he relaxed. He was still in Resistance HQ, though he was in an unfamiliar room he had never seen before. It was relatively small, with his being the only bed in it and seemed to be in the Hospital Wing. He was also not alone. Seated in a plush armchair next to the bed was Albus, who seemed like he was keeping vigil.

His chromesuit AI immediately told him that there had been an attempt to remove it, and its camouflage system had come online to maintain the illusion of robes when Harry fell unconscious.

Harry opened his eyes and sat up in his bed, feeling sorry that he had escape the warm comfortable confines of the sheets.

"Ah, Harry, how are you feeling?" said Albus with an eye twinkling grin.

"Much better, thank you," said Harry after he had taken a few moments consideration, "though quite hungry."

"That can be solved," said Albus lightly, and gave a clap of his hands. With a _crack_ a very familiar house-elf appeared. Harry couldn't place the name of the small being with tennisball yellow eyes and large floppy ears for a few moments, as his clone's memories were slow to come to the fore.

"Dobby?" said Harry, with a grin blossoming on his face. The small elf had an expression of awe on his face and bowed his head, not wanting to look Harry in the eye as if he couldn't dare contemplate it.

"What can Dobby be doing for Ancient One?" squeaked the elf. Harry sighed, he would have to get used to this reaction from some of the other 'magical' races. Dobby could clearly sense the awakened Alteran power within Harry and unlike wizards, who have forgotten their own history through circumstance and through the efforts of Merlin himself (the truth would've devastated wizardom), other magical races kept a healthy oral history through the millennia. The magical races themselves were in fact not native to Earth per se, they were found when the Alterans first began building their empire in the Milky Way when Earth was their home planet. They were races that, like the Alterans, had begun to evolve and master the universe around them. When the Great Plague had struck the Milky Way, the Alterans brought all these races together on Earth in quarantine to protect them. And they have called Earth home since that time.

"Please Dobby," said Harry with a sigh; the faithful elf had adored Clone Harry, now this was going beyond that. "Don't call me that around other wizards besides Albus. You may call me Master Harry, do you understand?" Dobby nodded his head so hard that his ears flapped like wings. "Now, I'm feeling rather peckish, can I please get some food?" The elf nodded and snapped his fingers. A tray with a large plate of poached eggs, bangers and French toast with syrup appeared and a mug of steaming hot coffee.

"Can Dobby be getting Ancient One, anything else?" said the elf.

"No, thank you, Dobby, you may go," said Harry with a nod. A _crack_ was heard and the elf had disappeared. Harry could feel Albus' curiosity at Dobby's strange reaction but chose not to respond to it. "How long was I out?"

"Oh, just the night," said Albus genially, "it's about ten in the morning. It seemed all you required was a Strength Replenishment Potion and some rest. Quite remarkable, considering the power you manipulated yesterday to destroy the Horcrux would've exhausted anyone else into a coma."

"What was Pomfrey's reaction to me?" asked Harry carefully, choosing not to elaborate on the comment.

"Well, she was at first understandably shocked," said Albus with a quirky grin, "but once she saw your condition, she put it out of her mind. Only afterwards did she ask me how it was possible."

"And you said?"

"I elucidated on what happened to you as much as you explained to Hermione," said Albus, giving Harry an enquiring look.

"That's OK," said Harry with a relieved sigh, waving Albus' concerns off. "'The next great adventure' or 'Ascension' as it's properly termed is the natural fulfillment of our evolution. Merely knowing about it is not of grave concern."

"How so?"

"It's difficult to use words to explain it," said Harry with a grin, and he reached over and grasped Albus' shoulder. There was silence as feelings and concepts impossible to form with words were traded. After but a few moments Harry removed his hand and sat back.

"Amazing," was all Albus said, his eyes had a faraway look to them.

"I take it Pomfrey was skeptical of you claim?"

"Of course," said Albus, snapping out of his inward reverie. "But I managed to convince her by allowing her to run a few tests on you…nothing invasive, I assure you, just a few rather specialized diagnostic spells. Her standard diagnostic brought up some odd results as well."

"They would," said Harry in an unconcerned tone, and began eating. "When can I meet with the Council of Races?"

"There is a bit of a problem with that," said Albus delicately. "In the hubbub of getting you to the Hospital Wing I'm afraid we, that is myself and Hermione, were a bit frantic to get you treatment, since you had just performed an extremely powerful, unknown spell and we couldn't begin to guess what might be wrong. So, we put you on the first available bed we could find in the main ward."

"Oh boy," said Harry with heavy sigh, and rubbed his hands through his hair in frustration. "Cat's out of the bag, heh?"

"Quite," said Albus dryly. "I've never known such bedlam to exist. I've had to ward this room with extensive spells to allow you some privacy before facing the entire Resistance. Those closest to you have been most especially vociferous in wanting to see you. I think Remus fainted when he saw your unconscious form in the Hospital Wing."

Harry inwardly frowned while keeping his face ambivalent; he really didn't know what he going to do with regards to the close family of his Clone. He had his clones' memories and the somewhat diluted feelings to go with it; but he didn't know if people like Remus Lupin, the best friend of his father, would appreciate the distant, unfamiliar eyes that stared out at them from the face of Harry Potter. Hermione's reaction had been indicative enough of the response he would get.

"So you think I should meet with Remus, the Weasleys, and Luna before I go to the Council of Races?"

"Indeed, it would be better to 'clear the air' as it were with them first," said Albus with a grin.

"I will meet them, but you must warn them not to expect much, my time on Earth is limited until my purpose here is complete," said Harry somewhat sadly, a feeling coming from his clone's memories.

"You will leave then," said Albus gravely, "like Merlin did?"

"Yes, and for the same reason he did," said Harry stridently. Wizards had greatly sought Merlin when he was on Earth, to either learn from the great sorcerer or to challenge him, it had gotten so tiresome for Merlin that he took the four Founders as Apprentices and taught them in hiding, after which he promptly Ascended; preferring to let Wizardom evolve on it own. Though Harry wouldn't ascend, (he didn't plan to do that for a long time) he couldn't remain with the Goa'uld threat hanging like the sword of Damocles over Earth. "Oh, and can you bring me Merlin's Journal before you send anyone in…"

He was cut off in his request when Albus pulled out the book in question from the folds of his robes. "This book is never out of my sight," he said at Harry's questioning look.

"Quite," said Harry with a grin, "better safe than sorry. It's time I find us a way into Hogwarts."

It seemed Albus wanted to allow Harry some time to study the Journal as the first visitor to his private ward room only entered two hours later. Harry had long since recovered his strength and had transfigured the bed into a desk and chair with a nice lamp on which to study Merlin's Journal.

Harry looked up and saw a man in his late thirties with brown hair with streaks of gray in it, wearing a ubiquitous set of dark gray robes. Scars on his face denoted the curse the man was afflicted every full moon. The man who was Remus Lupin walked cautiously into the room and seemed to be studying Harry intently; as if he was memorizing every detail.

Harry sighed and closed the Journal and looked up, meeting the eyes of his father's friend, and as he predicted flinched slightly at the unfamiliar stare in Harry's eyes.

"Greetings Remus," said Harry, standing up and stopped a few feet away from the man. "It's good to see you, again, as it were."

"Harry…" said Remus cautiously and seemed to sniff slightly, "or whoever you are."

"Ah, the lycan's sense of smell," said Harry, looking amused. "Yes, I would most certainly smell different to you now. I'm curious, how do I smell now, in comparison to my previous incarnation?" Remus flinched at the mention of incarnation and it's obvious association with death…Harry's death.

"You smell…perfect…clean…pure," said Remus, clearly trying to put it into words.

"Thought so," nodded Harry with a smile.

"What happened?" asked Remus in a voice laden with pain. It was easy to guess what the man was referring to.

"After my capture at the battle of Hogwarts, I had to endure three months of a great variety of tortures…the Cruciatus being the preferred choice, Dementor exposure, various slow acting Curses that were healed sloppily afterwards, I even think they threw in a Muggle technique here and there…and then in Diagon Alley, well it was relief to have it end…" Harry continued with much the same explanation he had given Hermione. Remus was clearly baffled with the idea of Ascension and looked skeptical.

"So it's true then…you did die?"

"You have to die to Ascend," said Harry evenly, "it's the catalyst needed for shaking off the physical body…and emerging as a being of pure energy…" Remus's skeptical look continued… "oh come now Remus, you know that matter and energy are closely related…how on earth do you think you use your own energy to transfigure something or yourself for that matter?" Remus sighed and shook his head; clearly he didn't want to contemplate it at the moment. "I know this is hard for you…but think about Hermione, imagine how she feels."

"I can't," said Remus ruefully.

"So if misery loves company, you can go and prove it with her," said Harry sadly. "But understand this Remus, I am only back temporarily…you know of my task. I will rid this world of Riddle and scatter his followers and sow the seeds of a better future, but I cannot be here to watch them grow and blossom."

"But…" said Remus looking alarmed. "You just got back…"

"This war is but a small thing, Remus," said Harry enigmatically. "There are battles in the great beyond that make this war seem like a minor lover's quarrel. Those battles must be fought for the sake of all. Even I, with all this power at my disposal, am but a pawn in the grand scheme of things. But you do not wish to know of it, so let me do something for you that the previous Harry could not…I'm sure Prongs would approve…" Harry closed the distance between them in a blink of an eye and he grabbed both Remus's hands in his…his mind reaching out towards the lycanthrope…his mind searching for the Curse…there was strobing flash of light and Remus flinched in pain…another flash of white light and Remus sank to his knees gasping for air.

Harry stood back and let go of Remus' hands; who's slumped to the floor his body wracking with tremors.

"I'm sorry for the pain," said Harry softly.

"What did you do to me?" asked Remus, still twitching on the floor, staring at his own hands…which seemed to be in the early stages of transforming into a werewolf's claws…but stopped and settled back into human hands…backwards and forwards…like a stuck record.

"Take it easy, it's just the Curse of Lycanthropy adjusting itself," said Harry genially. "I couldn't remove the Curse itself, that's beyond my power, but I can alter it somewhat."

"Alter how?" said Remus hoarsely, looking in horror as his nails blackened and lengthened in front of his eyes and then returned to its normal state.

"I altered the parameters of the Curse, I could go into all technical details for you but I'll give you the bottom line instead," said Harry with a grin, "on the full moon you will still transform into a werewolf, but your human mind will remain intact permanently. I've also removed that nasty allergy to silver that comes with the Curse."

"What?" said Remus in astonishment and sat up, his body's stability returning to normal.

"Do I need to repeat what I said?" said Harry, "or better yet I'll prove it to you. Experiencing it is believing it, after all." Harry reached into the folds of his robes and what looked like a pure silver knife emerged, before Remus could even think of dodging and running away, the younger wizard pressed the flat of the blade against the lycan's hand. Remus closed his eyes and prepared for the inevitable burn and pain that would come with it…he had experienced it once before when he had accidentally handled silver cutlery as a child…but no pain came!…unless you counted the coolness of the knife.

He opened his eyes and stared at the silver against the flesh of his hand in near wonder.

"See?" asked Harry expectantly. Remus brought his gaze up to Harry's and asked a simple question.

"Why?"

"My dad would be very put out with me if I didn't help the last Marauder while I was here and it was within my power," said Harry with a happy grin. "And this way, if you ever run into that traitorous rat Peter Pettigrew, you'll have one up on him when he tries to use that fancy silver hand given to him by Riddle." Remus' eyes flashed amber in anger automatically at the mere mention of the traitor who sold out Harry's parents to Riddle. "If I come across him in the battle to come, I promise to leave him alive."

"Leave him alive? What battle? What are you talking about?" growled Remus.

"Pettigrew has a date with you on a full moon, of course," said Harry with satisfaction, "and the battle will be the one we will be launching shortly to retake Hogwarts."

The meetings with Luna Lovegood, Fred, George and Ginny Weasley went in a similar vein. Their initial disbelief countered by Harry's brief explanation of Ascension, throwing in Merlin as reference for a similar occurrence. He even allowed his bright white aura to flare into the visible spectrum for them as further proof of his assertion. Then of course, there was the shock and the protests when they heard he wouldn't be staying long after settling matters in the wizarding world.

Then of course, there was the time when he first walked openly amongst the Resistance. It was eerily like his Clone's memories of the first day at Hogwarts. The astonished whispers, the outright amazement on people's faces, but what really made his day was the young children; on one occasion a slew of them, ranging from five to nine years old came forward and politely asked if he was Harry Potter. He answered in truthfully, that yes, he was, and they all cheered and swamped him in a group hug, asking him if he was going to finally kill You-Know-Who and in the same breath begged him to tell them a story. And he happily complied. He considered this good practice, with Apollonia soon to give birth to his own children.

The meeting with the Council of Races followed the next day.

The Council held session in a room adjacent to the 'War room'. On one side was a C shaped desk that each had a chair for the chief wizard, goblin, vampire and house-elf that were seated in them; in the case of the goblin and house-elf the chairs were extra tall. There were a few rows of seats at the other end of the room for anyone who was summoned to appear before the Council and any witnesses that were required for the sessions as needed.

In this case, only Harry was to appear before the Council in a closed session.

Albus Dumbledore, Ragnarok the Goblin Chief of Clans, Count Vlad Drakul of the Vampire Nation in Exile and Tigby the Eldest House-elf all sat arrayed before Harry.

"I think we can begin?" said Albus, staring at the others lightly, who only nodded in return. "Well, we have assembled here today to consider a course of action that will hopefully see a final end to this war and hopefully bring freedom from terror and persecution for all magical beings on the British Isles."

"You all know of Harry Potter, and his return to us is in front of your eyes, and you have heard the rumors flying about since he was brought into the Hospital Wing yesterday. What you don't know is that Harry has been working in secret amongst us for over a month."

"So he is the impetus for all the recent surge in Auror activity," said Ragnarok with a satisfied calculating grin on his leathery face; which immediately faded into a rare look of respect when his eyes settled upon Harry.

"Indeed," said Albus, "it was he who removed the Curse from my person, it was he who placed the Healing Device in the Hospital Wing, which has saved numerous lives since. He has gone on numerous missions with Hermione Granger and Neville Longbottom in support of Resistance activities. It was he who originated the final plan that will be the demise of Voldemort and his supporters, a plan that will be explained fully in this meeting. We have assembled to consider this plan and whether it is plausible to commit all our resources to achieve it or perhaps to consider more ideas to improve upon it."

"And what if we disagree with the whole thing?" said Count Drakul in an extremely cultured and refine tone of voice that had a seductive silkyness to it as well. If a non-magical person had been in the room, they would've been instantly in the Thrall of the Count and rather willingly offered their neck for him.

"Harry would accept that and ask us to table a better plan that would suit us," said Albus confidently.

"Indeed," said the Count, arching an eyebrow at Albus.

"Very well," said Ragnarok, "let's hear it."

"Harry, the floor is yours," prompted Albus.

"Thank you," nodded Harry, leaning slightly on his staff that was clutched in his right hand. "Just a day ago a significant advance was made into engineering the demise of Voldemort, whom I shall address as Riddle from hereafter. For a long time, this secret, the secret of Riddle's apparent immortality, has been kept from the Resistance as a whole. No longer. For it's really a moot point now."

"What are you saying?" said the Count with interest; for a long time this subject had been debated amongst the vampires, of how Voldemort seemed to be immune to a mortal death. The issue was what had led a lot of the vampire covens to side with Voldemort, because he had seemingly achieved immortality without becoming undead, and as result had none of the weaknesses associated with vampirism.

"Riddle achieved his 'apparent' immortality by splitting his soul and creating a Horcrux, a vessel to contain and protect a portion of soul…and with it earthbound and safe, he could not die a normal death. He was reduced to a specter, a formless wraith when the Killing Curse he fired at me rebounded on him. But this was not all, he went further than any other wizard who had created a Horcrux, he made not one, but six of them, with the seventh piece residing in his current body."

"Really? Is that what he did?" said the Count looking angry, disgusted and unimpressed in quick order. "He entrusted his soul to bunch of enchanted trinkets?"

"Yes," said Harry earnestly, "and yesterday, the fifth Horcrux was destroyed."

"What of the sixth?" asked Ragnarok gruffly.

"Riddle always keeps it close to him, it's his familiar, the snake Nagini, so there is no point in waiting to launch our endgame," answered Harry.

"And this endgame is?" asked the Count lightly.

"To launch an attack on Hogwarts," said Harry and immediately raised his hand to forestall any protests. "I have a sure way in past the wards, they won't even bother us."

"You have found something Harry?" asked Albus, looking pleased.

"Indeed," nodded Harry, "we will approach through the Forbidden Forest and enter through the tunnel Salazar Slytherin built for his pet Basilisk to leave the Chamber of Secrets for a meal every once in a while."

"Surely there are wards that extend to this tunnel as well," opinioned Ragnarok.

"There are," confirmed Harry, "but I've had access to certain…research notes from the Founding, and since I am a Parselmouth I am nearly a hundred percent sure that the wards in the tunnel will open."

"How many do you wish to commit to this battle?" asked Albus evenly.

"Three quarters of the Aurors, enough vampires to counter those inside the castle, a squadron of goblins, and all the former Hogwarts house-elves."

Count Drakul whistled in appreciation and settled back into his chair, his fingers tented under his pale chin.

"You realize that we will lose our neutral position and as such, many of our Intelligence sources will be compromised," said Ragnarok gravely.

"I understand," nodded Harry, "but unless you have the location of Riddle himself…intelligence on Death Eaters will not help us in the coming battle. And the only way I'm going to find Riddle is to allow him to come to me; which should not be long after we retake Hogwarts." Harry remained silent at this point awaiting the opinion of the others.

"Your strategic plan is sound at least," said Count Drakul eventually. All eyes turned to Ragnarok.

"I'm rather hesitant to endorse a course of action that will cause Gringotts a great many headaches in the future," said the Goblin Chief with a gruff sigh, "but it seems that we no choice to accept those future ails if we want to regain long term profit. We accept the plan of the Ancient One."

"Three quarters of the Aurors, Harry?" asked Albus with raised eyebrows.

"We need numerical superiority, Albus," said Harry. "Nearly all of the casualties amongst the Order of the Phoenix in the first war were because the Death Eaters had numerical superiority. I think it's time we give them a taste of how that feels." Albus bowed his head and nodded.

"Very well, I accept," he said. Harry turned his head towards Tigby, the elf only nodded in agreement, looking very serious; probably because he was a Hogwarts house-elf himself and anything that would reclaim his home from dark wizards he would support.

"Thank you," nodded Harry in relief. "Within a week, Hogwarts will be reclaimed…or we fall."

_A/N: Next chapter…The Battle for Hogwarts. Aqua Regia is a much more involved process that described in this story, please do not attempt to do it without verified step-by-step instructions from a respected Gold company. I know I could've expounded more on the reactions of the various characters to Harry's appearance from the dead, but I feel I need to move the story along quicker._


	19. Chapter 19

_**Chapter Nineteen – Hope is Kindled**_

The Forbidden Forest stretched along a portion of the eastern boundaries of Hogwarts Castle. The Forest occupied a great footprint of numerous square kilometers. The trees were thick and had seen the passage of many ages. It was well into the evening, and with only a quarter moon the boughs that loomed over the forest floor smothered out any moonlight or starlight that might have illuminated the Forest. There were thin paths that snaked throughout the trees, paths that were created over the period of a millennium since Hogwarts was built and founded by Merlin's apprentices. The Forest was home to a multitude of magical beings and creatures, the most notable being the Centaurs, Acromantulae and other varieties to numerous to mention…the Forest had become a Reservation from the encroaching march of non-magical civilization and even from wizards.

However, deep within the boughs and trees of the Forest, walked four people; in the lead was Harry, dressed in the silver white robes with gray trimming and hood; a design worn by the Alterrans in the latter stages of their Empire's existence and something which Merlin often wore amongst the wizards and non-magical alike. His Naquadah black staff glowed slightly to light the way. To Harry's right was Albus Dumbledore, who had asked if he could wear the Alterran robes as well. A request Harry easily consented to…every wizard or witch could retrace their lineage at some point back to the Alterrans…though it was a history long forgotten and had to remain lost in the mists of time.

Hermione and Neville took up the rear guard and were dressed in the ubiquitous gray Resistance combat robes they always wore on assignment. Their walk continued unabated for nearly half an hour until Harry raised his bent arm with closed fist. The small group stopped immediately at the silent command.

'_We are being followed and encircled_,' came the distinct thoughts of Harry into the minds of the other three.

'_Who is it?_' thought Neville.

'_Centaurs, I believe,_' thought Albus.

'_This is weird,_' thought Hermione, obviously referring to the means with which they were 'speaking' to each other. In his pocket Harry had a small obsidian triangular stone, which was linking the conscious thoughts of all four of them together. It was a device of Alterran origin, much like a handradio, its pickup range was a hundred meters, but with another matching stone you could conceivable remain in touch anywhere on the planet.

A movement in the trees caught their attention and a Centaur stepped into the field of dim light coming from Harry's staff. The Centaur was black haired and wild looking, and carried a bow with an arrow notched, though it was lowered.

"Bane," said Albus in greeting.

"Albus Dumbledore," said the half-man, half-horse coolly. "What are you doing here?"

"Oh, my companions and I just felt like taking a stroll, then we decided we might as well see what we could do about the nasty little problem of Death Eaters using Hogwarts as a base of operations," said Albus with an odd grin. Bane looked at Albus shrewdly as if trying to decide whether the old wizard had finally gone off his rocker. The moment passed and the Centaur looked up into the sky. "Strange portents are in the heavens of late, a new star hovers over the land. The star of an Ancient One…" Bane looked down and his eyes fell on Harry. "Harry Potter…and yet not…yet an Ancient One nonetheless," said the centaur.

"Will the Centaurs challenge our passage through the forest?" asked Harry with a raised eyebrow; not feeling in the mood to stargaze with a Centaur.

"If you are here to liberate Hogwarts Ancient One, then we will not stand in your way," said Bane, staring at Harry intently. "Often we have to drive off dark wizards who would use the forest for the gathering of supplies to fuel the rise of their 'Dark Order'. It's a tiresome duty and some of my fellow Centaurs have been slain."

"Your efforts are appreciated by the Resistance and the Council of Races," said Harry solemnly. "Mars will shine tonight."

"But will it wane?" asked Bane, looking up to the sky again.

"Perhaps," said Harry. The Centaur looked down again and bowed his head slightly at Harry, and with a cantering of hooves turned on the spot and disappeared into the darkness of Forest. The small group set off again when Harry felt the Centaurs leave. Another ten minutes passed and finally Harry called a halt again. They were standing in a small clearing and the reason it was there at all was because of a few large stones that lay in a haphazard pile; the heavy stones were overgrown with moss and a few hardy plants had made their homes between them.

"Is this it?" asked Hermione uncertainly. Harry didn't answer but walked forward and tapped the nearest stone with his staff. It looked completely solid and normal. Albus frowned as he gazed at the stones with his own prodigious senses…and was left baffled. There had to be some form of magic or trace over the entrance, if indeed, this was the entrance, but there was nothing…normal.

"Very clever, Slytherin," said Harry eventually, after gazing at the stones for a few moments.

"What is it?" asked Neville.

"What we see before us is an illusion," said Harry thoughtfully. "It might not sense that way to you Albus, but there is a small localized null magic field around the entrance."

"Null magic?"

"It's impossible for a wizard to perform magic within its area of effect," he explained. Neville curiously walked towards the stones and incanted a simple Light Charm with his wand…nothing happened…no light flared from the tip.

"Amazing," said Albus nonplussed, "the knowledge of producing such a null magic field was lost ages ago."

"Thank Merlin himself for that," said Harry darkly, "can you imagine what such knowledge would do in the wrong hands." The group shuddered at the thought. "But the illusion of the stones is powered from outside the null field and as such, it is not affected."

"Making any wizard believe, it's just an ordinary pile of rocks, ingenious," muttered Albus.

"But remember, this place was made for the Basilisk to come and go, so we have to pretend to be the King of Serpents," said Harry, and walked out of the null field and reached into a pocket of his robes. He pulled out a shrunken trunk, that had once belonged to his Clone and since his capture and 'death' had fallen into Hermione's possession. She had remembered of it not long after the destruction of Slytherin's Locket. There were a lot of useful things in this trunk. Harry gestured with his hand at the small trunk and it expanded to its full size. Just short of a meter in width and half a meter wide it stood fifty centimeters off the soft earth. He twisted a knob on the front to the sixth position of seven, and undoing the latches popped the lid open. Inside was a numerous selection of Potion bottles and ingredients…after searching amongst them for a while he pulled out a dark tinted glass bottle with a sludgy tar black substance inside.

"Of course," said Hermione with an air of wonder, "the venom harvested from the Basilisk you killed in second year."

Harry carefully uncorked the bottle and walked forward carefully to just outside the edge of the null magic field. He shot his forearm forward and arrested the motion, causing a smattering of venom to coast through the air and land on the stones in a streaked line. The others then clearly heard Harry hissing in Parseltongue. The effect was immediate. The stones began to glow white and with a slight ripple of distortion vanished to show a slanted hole in the earth, the light from Harry's staff clearly showed that there was a tunnel beyond.

"What did you say in Parseltongue?" asked Hermione curiously.

"Open," he replied, looking amused.

"You're joking?" she said incredulously.

"Don't look at me," said Harry with a shrug, putting back the bottle of venom in the trunk, shrinking it and back it went into his pocket, "but I've got a feeling that the Basilisk I fought wasn't the cleverest of snakes. Tom Riddle had to keep telling it what to do during our confrontation. So I think that Salazar Slytherin didn't have much to work with in terms of brain power or creativity and couldn't make the password something complex."

"Is this our only obstacle?" asked Neville, looking apprehensively into the tunnel, that sloped relatively gently deeper into the earth.

"I think there will be more wards along the way," said Harry, he reached into his pocket again and produced another Alteran communication stone and handed it to Hermione. "You and Hermione will remain at the entrance, while Albus and I will journey further, I will signal when we have a clear path. Then send your Patronus to Shacklebolt and the rest of the Resistance forces."

She nodded, looking slightly unhappy at being left behind. Harry turned towards Albus and gestured towards the hole, "Shall we?"

He led the way into the darkness.

It was nearly an hour later when Harry stumbled out of the open mouth of the huge monkeylike visage of Salazar Slytherin within the Chamber of Secrets. He was breathing heavily and wearily sat down, resting his back against the vast relief sculpture. After a few moments he felt composed enough to look out at the vast chamber before him that narrowed down into the corridor with serpent statues guarding either side in some sort of bizarre honor guard. His memories of this place from his Clone were naturally among those that were most vivid, all the near death experiences were.

Only a few scattered remnants of bone were littered about the chamber, as the dead Basilisk had long ago been harvested for everything of value that could be found. There was a rustle of robes and a grunt of exertion from the mouth of the statue and Albus now stood next to him his wand lit and shining brightly to scan the Chamber for any threat.

"Are you all right, Harry?"

"Penetrating those barriers and keeping them breached took a lot out of me," said Harry, closing his eyes and breathing deeply.

"I would imagine so," said Albus heavily, "wards of such strength and age aren't easily pushed aside, no matter what inside knowledge you've had as to their construction."

"Indeed," he replied, "can you tell Hermione to send the signal?"

"Certainly," said Albus, understanding that Harry wanted to conserve as much energy as possible. _'Hermione! We're in and the way is clear! Send your Patronus_.' Thought Albus focusing on the mental link that Harry's rather fascinating device had created in all their minds.

'_Patronus is away_,' came her thought in reply.

'_Be aware that it is a long and cramped journey through the tunnel_,' thought Albus, '_there are also runic markings at certain points that is critical to remain undisturbed_.'

'_What do you mean?_'

'_Harry drew and empowered words or 'runes' (for lack of a better word) in the same strange language that Merlin's Journal is written in,_' thought Albus, his curiosity and fascination streamed through the mental link. '_I believe that they were placed to disrupt the wards enough for our passage. It would be poor form to disturb them and cause a ward to crash down back in place…that disturbance would be enough for Severus Snape to detect the breach._'

'_I'll brief the assault force before they go in_,' thought Hermione, the mental link's 'telephone handset' was metaphorically put down.

Albus turned to find Harry pulling out his trunk again, and this time produced some food, which he began to devour hungrily. The older wizard conjured a chair for himself and sat down to wait.

Harry put the shrunken trunk back into his pocket, but then reached for another pocket for where he produced an Asgard Jewel device. Albus looked curiously at the device and clearly recognized the Norse runes on it, he watched as Harry placed it on the floor below his legs.

"Albus," said Harry, "I'm going to meddle about with Time for a few moments. So, please, do not approach me." Before Albus could do so much as voice a verbal protest a cocoon of blue energy flashed around Harry and disappeared. In astonishment he watched, as Harry seemed to move extremely fast for a few moments before he settled back into stillness, his eyes closed. The only clue as to something happening was the fact that Harry's breathing seemed to be extraordinarily fast and his face was occasionally twitching at an incredible speed. Albus opened his senses and did a rare thing…he gasped. _Time_ around Harry was moving ten times faster than normal.

Meddling with Time was something wizards as a rule tended to avoid; so many problems and the potential for the disaster of Paradoxes came with it. But Harry seemed to do it with the casualness of flicking a light switch. Such an attitude could only come from superior knowledge or arrogance and ignorance of the danger…but somehow Albus knew the former was true.

Half an hour passed and there was a blue flash of light as the energy cocoon collapsed around Harry. It was clear that the Time distortion was no longer in effect as Harry now simply looked like he was asleep and breathing deeply at a slow pace. Albus decided to let the younger wizard continue sleeping for as long as possible, a decision that was made moot as a grunting of effort was heard from the mouth of the statue, causing Harry's eyes to snap open in alarm but relaxing when he took cognizance of his surroundings.

Harry stood with a groan, stretching his arms and yawning impressively.

"How are you, my boy?" asked Albus, getting up from his chair and vanishing it.

"I'll manage," said Harry, picking up the Asgard Jewel device and putting it back in his pocket. A dirty looking Kingsley Shacklebolt stumbled out the statue at this moment and regarded the surroundings with keen interest.

"So this is the Chamber of Secrets," said the Head Auror.

"Indeed," said Albus, "rather too sinister for my taste but it feels good nevertheless to be within Hogwarts again."

"You weren't spotted?" asked Harry in turn.

"We flew in small groups coming from multiple directions and kept ourselves disillusioned," said Shacklebolt. "The goblins will have the most trouble, but I think they'll manage."

Three more Aurors that were partnered with Shacklebolt struggled through the mouth of the statue. And so began an incredibly slow process of getting everyone organized. Every few minutes another group of five Aurors would crawl into the Chamber of Secrets. Eventually a total of ninety Aurors including Kingsley stood congregated in the dark Chamber. Then a squeaking and flapping of wings was heard as a veritable swarm of bats poured out Slytherin's mouth.

The bats swooped into the air above the Aurors and soon after the swarm began to divide itself into much smaller groups that fluttered down to empty spaces on the ground like falling sand. The smaller groups of bats began to coalesce into humanoid shapes and eventually sinister looking vampires in varieties of black clothes and capes materialized.

Twenty minutes later the Aurors and Vampires had to make room for a half company of Goblins. They were bedecked in enchanted leather armors and carried various weapons, from enchanted crossbows, swords and axes to even a few enchanted matchlock rifles.

Following the last Goblins were Neville and Hermione who had to struggle through the now rather crowded Chamber to make it to the front where Harry, Albus, Shacklebolt, Drakul and Goblin Commander Griphook were coordinating their forces.

Harry drew the assembled forces attention when he walked forward and tapped his staff on the ground, the headpiece flashing with power.

"Greetings my comrades-in-arms and fellow magical beings," said Harry powerfully, his voice seemed to resonate in everyone's ears and yet the sound was somehow contained within the assembled force. "Today we take back this bastion of learning that was stolen from us by the Darkness. Yet it was not only a school, it became something far greater than that during the mid stages of the war…it became our refuge, our stronghold, a fortress of Light standing brightly amidst the Chaos."

"We are here to take it back. Not for wizards, not for vampires, not for Goblins, not for house-elves, but for every magical being on these British Isles…if not the world. The world needs us, fight for it!"

"Hear, hear!" came the shout from the assembled.

"We have a precious opportunity here, right now!" said Harry, his emerald eyes glowing with power. "While I was resting after breaching the wards I learned something that can only be the workings of Fate itself! And perhaps of irony!"

"Tom Riddle, that pretentious fool who calls himself Voldemort, is here, now! Above us in the castle!"

Hermione gasped and she saw how Albus's face became grave but determined. The Assembled forces began to look troubled.

"Do not give in to fear! That is his weapon! Your job is to take care of his minions and supporters; it is my job to face him! Stick together in your assigned groups, secure the sections of the castle you have been assigned, look out for each other and you will speak of this day to your grandchildren and sires far into the future!"

Hermione had to give it to Harry, he certainly could motivate. She felt electrified by the sheer weight of his presence as if she had static all over her. This was another big difference from the previous incarnation of Harry. The 'old' Harry was never one to step forward and be assertive in anything. This one stood at the head of army as if he had done so many times before; and who was to say that he didn't, if he did indeed live another lifetime in some other plane of existence.

"Hermione," said Harry in a commanding tone, "send a signal to the elves, they are to apparate into the castle and deliver their…surprises." Hermione nodded and sent off a Patronus that disappeared into a nearby wall, on its way to the house-elves.

Harry turned to Albus and nodded. The old wizard now addressed the assembled.

"You all have your marching orders," said Albus, "myself, Mr's Potter, Longbottom and Ms Granger will take a direct route to the Headmaster's Office, and then to the Great Hall. These are the most likely locations where our key targets will be; Tom Riddle, Severus Snape, Bellatrix Lestrange or any other members of the Inner Circle. If you are to come across any of them, defend yourselves as necessary. But do not engage Voldemort, retreat if you see him and call for Harry."

Harry nodded and turned around to lead the way with the three others following in his wake. They stopped at the massive round vault-like door with coiled serpents decorating it and that acted as the locking mechanism. A brief word in Parseltongue was all it took and the door opened. A few meters behind them Team 1; consisting of five Aurors, three Vampires and a fire team of five Goblin warriors walked together in a loose formation.

They had to bend low to cross the part of the tunnel where it had once partially collapsed and finally the four of them congregated at the circular landing where the nexus of the plumbing system was. It was this that had allowed the Basilisk to move about unseen around Hogwarts during his Clone's second year at the school. Harry walked towards the main pipe that had acted as the primary route into the school proper and with a simple command of '_Rungs_' in Parseltongue handholds appeared within the pipe that would allow someone to climb back out.

He brushed his thumb over a certain part of his Naquadah Staff and it instantly shrunk in size to allow him to safely put it away in a special inner pocket of his robes. The journey now continued with the rather long climb from being well underneath the level of the Lake up into the School itself.

They reached the end of the climb well over twenty minutes later and they had to stop on numerous occasions to let Albus catch his breath. It was obvious that his physical stamina was not what it once had been and that he was reluctant to reinforce himself with 'magical' energies; since he wanted to keep those for the battles that was no doubt to come. Finally, Harry had to give the last command in Parseltongue for the octagonal handwash basin arrangement within Moaning Myrtle's Bathroom to part and open for them.

He carefully poked his head out so that just his eyes peeked past the lip of the manhole-like entrance in the floor. The musty bathroom was in near darkness, except for the light from the corridor slitting itself through the gaps in the thick wooden door leading into the first floor bathroom. With a brief concentration his vision shifted through the various frequencies of infrared light scanning the room for any heat sources. Satisfied he placed his hands on the lip and vaulted himself onto the tiled floor of the bathroom. His staff was unshrunk in his right hand a moment later and he bent down to give Albus a hand up, followed by Neville and Hermione.

Being as quiet as possible Team 1 also entered the bathroom. This team's duty was to initially support Harry's team and help them get to the Headmaster's Office. Team 2 and 3 entered and now it was time to surge out as the bathroom didn't have enough room to accommodate the entire attacking force.

Harry paused at the door, putting a hand to its latch and took a deep fortifying breath. Since this was the first floor of Hogwarts, the chances that they would run into a Death Eater or similar minion were very high. There was the danger that the strike force could be bogged down in the bathroom and turn the battle into a siege of attrition…that was not an option.

Hence this was where the house-elves came in. They were armed with the permission to use their magic, and a host of items from Fred and George Weasley, all perfectly suited to creating chaos and confusion. Harry nodded towards Hermione. Her wand came up and another messenger Patronus surged away from it and down into the floor. The effect was heard a mere five seconds later.

Screams, exclamations of surprise, anger, and various other emotions echoed around the castle. The crackle of magic and spells being cast was heard not a few moments later and that was their cue.

Harry pushed open the door and rolled forward. His staff swooped the legs out from under an utterly surprised Death Eater, who crashed to the ground, and lost the air from his lungs as he fell on his back. Standing upright Harry's staff swung viciously again and crashed against the temple of the Death Eater, knocking out the man instantly. Albus twirled his wand and metal manacles appeared to hogtie the dark wizard to render him permanently out of the fight.

Harry turned to the left and started down the corridor, the other fourteen following in a wall hugging formation. He could barely see Teams 2 and 3 heading in the opposite direction before they turned a corner and were out of sight.

Another Death Eater fell to the combined spells of Hermione and Neville as he was walking out of a room to the side. Here they briefly paused as four Aurors from Team 1 did a room attack to make sure that it was secure and free from enemies. Though they did have a permanent rear guard, it would hamper the team to turn around and fight if more Death Eaters had suddenly popped out after they had passed.

The castle was now a virtual cacophony of battle; screams, the crackle of spells, explosions.

The group's next challenge though was more serious. A group of three Dementors attacked with a menacing glide. A few Aurors in the group were clearly seen wincing as the happiness draining effect of a Dementor settled on the immediate area.

Harry's worst memories threatened to break out and splash over his senses; his dying mother's screams, the massacre of civilization's by the Goa'uld, the carrion picking off from the rotting meat of corpses, the guilt of his own failures to protect those very people. He shook his head like a dog shrugging off water and slammed his staff into the ground…bright white light started emitting from the head of the staff.

The true origins of Dementors were lost to wizardom, as were most things that were created before Merlin's time. A Dementor when first born is actually nothing more than an instinctual animal, but it had no soul. A dark shaman using a damaged Ancient Healing Device created the first Dementor, the shaman had also blessed the ravenous instincts of a hyena onto the animated corpse. As a Dementor fed on souls it gained some measure of intelligence from those; hence the fact that you can talk to a Dementor.

The Dementors stopped dead in the glare of bright light and actually began to quiver and spasm. Harry was emitting power on a specific frequency and wavelength opposite that of the life giving energy that had initially imbued the first Dementor. Then a virtual onslaught of Patronus Charms rushed onto the Dementors and the fiends (unable to absorb so much happiness at one go and unable to flee) literally burst apart in with muted flashes of energy.

They continued onward.

In the large central stairwell with the infamous moving staircases a battle of truly epic proportions was being fought. Spells and bursts of light shot upwards and downwards between the moving islands of marble stone. Aurors on certain staircases were streaming spells from behind the cover of the thick marble railings down towards another staircase where a group of Death Eaters was forced to alternately shield themselves and retaliate. Vampires in their partial transformation; with wings sticking out of their backs, battled in mid-air with claw and fang. They did it so fast they were mere blurs of movement.

Albus, Neville, Hermione, a few Aurors and the Goblin fire team took station (as there was no staircase yet for them to ascend) and started shooting spells, enchanted arrows and musket upward. They had to be very careful, as in such a chaotic situation; a friendly fire incident was not a matter of if, but merely when.

Harry focused on his staff and a moment later its entire length was sheathed in a wash of transparent blue power. The use of this was apparent immediately as Death Eaters above shot spells towards the newly appeared Team 1. The spells of various hues (except green, as a Killing Curse was a really exhausting spell to use in a protracted battle) streamed down toward them and then Harry began to twirl his staff in an infinity loop, as if it was a double bladed sword. Spells ricocheted back or shot off into a harmless direction whenever the glowing staff intercepted them.

"Watch Star Wars much?" shouted Hermione, next to him, shielding herself and retaliating with a nasty Whiplash Hex.

"I was inspired!" shouted Harry back with a lop-sided grin. To further prove it, he raised a hand and made a violent pulling gesture with it. There was a scream from above as a Death Eater was pulled from the fourth floor staircase, over its railing, and fell down to the bottom of the staircase with sick thud, which was inaudible over the bedlam of battle.

At this point a trio of hostile vampires managed to break free through the lines of the allied vampires and assaulted Team 1's position. This was the cue for Team 1's vampires to burst into action. They leaped up into the air, wings sprouting from their backs and met the attacking vampires attack with the ferocity of two cars crashing against each other at terminal speeds. Harry had to duck as a vampire claw came within inches of his head as the battle continued above them. But his focus was reserved to keep his staff powered and intercepting any offensive spells and sending them back to their casters and if that was not possible, sending them to other Death Eaters or to any hostile vampire.

On one truly 'cool' occasion, as Colonel O'Neill would've said, Harry managed to deflect the Slashing Curse of another Death Eater to cut up another Death Eater on a neighboring moving staircase, saving the life of an overwhelmed Auror. The Auror in question waved his thanks and continued in the battle.

Finally, an ascending staircase docked with their floor, allowing Team 1 to stream onto it, firing and deflecting as they went. The staircase started to move. Harry gave a sweeping gesture of his hand, and a hostile vampire was flung off balance, allowing a friendly vampire to get the upper hand and deliver a killing blow. The staircase finally stopped, allowing them to get off on the second floor. Where they had to enter into a fierce duel with four Death Eaters rushing towards the central staircase, clearly trying to add their weight to the battle. After a few spell exchanges Albus swiftly overpowered two of them with one spell; it picked both up before they could even think of sending another spell and smashed both their heads together, resulting in a heavy concussion for both.

A Death Eater sent a sickly yellow spell at Harry, who batted it away easily with his staff. Harry made a reverse slapping gesture with his left hand and the Death Eater flew into his comrade battling with Hermione. She made short work of both, throwing Permanent Stunning Spells. The majority of Team 1 rushed forward to cover the corridor as the rest turned back towards the central staircase, to wait for another ascending staircase to reach the third floor.

Luckily, they didn't have long to wait as one docked with the second floor a few moments later. This staircase had five Aurors and two Goblins from Team 4 on it; dividing their efforts to sends spells upward and downward. Team 1 rushed up the stairs and helped their compatriots by adding to the weight of spellfire. The air in the central staircase now had a distinct smell of ozone and smoke that was hardly pleasant to breathe.

Harry spent most of his efforts now into helping friendly vampires. Since if hostile vampires controlled the airy space of the central staircase it would make advancing further into the castle nigh impossible. So they ascended onto the third, fourth and finally fifth floor; Team 1's ultimate destination. Their ascent had made a clear difference, allowing them to secure the lower parts of the staircase letting more Team's surge onto those floors.

Harry led Team 1 along the corridor, securing classrooms as they moved forward. It was as they turned a corner that they encountered an enemy that they hadn't expected. The smell of rotten socks combined with the worst of public toilets entered their noses and then they had to dodge the efforts of not one but two fully-grown mountain Trolls trying to smash them into pulp with their huge clubs. The initial volley of spells from the Aurors bounced off the 'magical' hide of the creatures.

The Goblin fire team was more successful. Arrows and muskets lanced into the large monstrosities, making holes and turning them into something that resembled pincushions. Harry let the spell deflection ability of his staff fade and a bright yellow spell from the head shot towards the eyes of one of the Trolls; causing it to roar in agony and drop its club as it clawed at its eyes. The Goblins concentrated their fire on that one while Harry gave another gesture of his hand and the club in the other Troll's hand was swept violently aside and smashed itself onto its owner's head.

Two heavy crashes punctuated the fall of both Trolls.

"Well, that's slightly unexpected," commented Albus, picking himself up from the floor after he had to evade the rampaging Trolls. Harry knew what the old wizard meant; there had been no inkling from Goblin intelligence that Trolls were in Riddle's employ.

They finally approached the corridor they were aiming for…at its end was the Gargoyle statue that protected the entrance to the Headmaster's Office.

"Team 1," said Albus with twinkling eyes, "it's been a pleasure and honor, please, head back to the central staircase and continue the efforts in securing it." The leader of Team 1 nodded and lead his Aurors and Goblins back the way they came.

Harry whipped his hood up to cover his face in darkness and this time let Albus take the lead heading towards the Gargoyle. Halfway down the long corridor, the Gargoyle in question suddenly stepped aside to let two individuals pass it. Both were Death Eaters, clearly indicated by the style of their black robes, both were unmasked, clearly betraying their identities. One was male and the other clearly female.

Bellatrix Lestrange and Severus Snape came to a dead stop when they saw that their way was already blocked. They had been attempting to coordinate the defense of the castle from the Headmaster's Office, but with the loss of the central staircase the tide had clearly turned and they were being systematically routed from the castle. He sneered contemptuously at those who stood blocking his path and preventing Lestrange and him from adding their weight to the battle, it was merely a cover to hide the surprise and unease at who was doing the blocking.

Standing there, looking surprisingly vital and healthy and still powerful was Albus Dumbledore. Severus knew he shouldn't have let Rookwood do that obscure curse on the old wizard, it had clearly taken too long and Dumbledore had clearly found a way to reverse it. The curse was Severus' attempt to throw the old fool's words back at him; 'There are worse things than death.' And he wanted the old man to experience it first hand.

Next to Dumbledore, similarly dressed in that strange combination of robes stood that damnable mystery wizard with his staff. This wizard had in the last two and a half months done more damage and wreaked more havoc than that pathetic Potter did in five years. Next to them stood the Granger Mudblood and the spineless Longbottom.

Harry gritted his teeth as anger began to rise within him at the sight of Severus Snape. The wizard responsible for informing Riddle of the prophecy that caused the death of both his parents. Bellatrix Lestrange had killed his clone 'brother's beloved Godfather and countless other atrocities; the most notable of which was the torturing of Neville's parents into insanity with the Cruciatus. Both had also taken part in the torturing of his clone brother. All that aside, Harry despised them both on sheer principle.

"Why hello my dear Severus," said Albus genially, "been keeping well? And Mrs Lestrange, feeling all right?"

Bellatrix Lestrange sneered at Albus' mock cheerfulness. Harry noted that her cruel thin face and long black hair with slightly manic eyes looked the same as ever since he last saw her through his Clone's memories.

"Neville?" asked Albus not taking his eyes off the two Inner Circle members. It was all the prompting Neville needed as the stout man stepped forward raising his wand towards Lestrange. Albus raised his wand towards Snape.

Bellatrix laughed mockingly, "Ooooh, I've so been looking forward to this day, ready to take your medicine Longbottom and join your parents?"

"I'm afraid that, for what he has in mind for you Mrs Lestrange, would be nothing compared to what you did to his parents," said Albus, his voice turning harsh as stone grinding against each other. "Severus, I hope you are adequately prepared, when it comes to you I'm afraid my patience has run out."

"Oh, no more chances then, _Headmaster_," sneered Snape, drawing his wand.

"You've had your second," said Albus, and without further pomp released a spell that literally shook the walls as it passed. Neville at the same time shot a powerful Flaying Curse at Lestrange. The dark witch had to conjure a powerful shield to protect herself and Snape had to fling himself to the side to avoid the curse from Albus which blew away numerous layers of brickwork and stone.

Harry and Hermione had retreated a few steps back to allow the duels to take their course. And the power on display was rather impressive. Snape was obviously no match for Albus, but the Death Eater managed to hang on by the skin of his teeth with a combination of evasions and dark spellwork that kept the old wizard busy; as it would be catastrophic not to properly counter the spells.

The fight between Neville and Lestrange was more contentious and fierce. Bellatrix Lestrange was clearly still a top-notch dark witch with extremely good reflexes. Neville found it extremely difficult to land a spell on her. However, it seemed to Harry that Neville had an edge in terms of sheer power.

After a minute of fighting, Snape was finally tripped up by a brilliant combination of quick spells from Albus. The old wizard batted aside a Shredding Curse and then faster than Snape expected shot a series of spells that summoned, banished and tripped the Death Eater at the same time. Albus had clearly fortified his own body again with his own prodigious power allowing for much faster reflexes and movement. A surprised Snape felt pushed from behind and from in front and his left foot was caught in front of his right causing him to fall ungracefully to the floor. A jet of purple light sealed his fate and he was rendered into the land of nod.

Albus levitated the body backwards and away from the ongoing battle between Neville and Lestrange. Out of the corner of his eye Harry saw the old wizards began to wave his wand continuously over the prone Snape and murmuring under his breath; clearly attempting to transfer the anchor of the wards over to himself.

A cry of pain was heard the next moment as Neville slid backwards on the floor clutching his bleeding wand arm to his chest.

"Avada Kedavra!" hissed Bellatrix cruelly the next moment. A jet of green light sped inexorably towards the injured Neville. There was a flash of white light. An explosion sent fragments of something metallic shooting in all directions. There was a brief cry of pain. The distinct sound of a body falling to the floor.

The smoke cleared.

Harry stood with his staff's head glowing. A sheer transparent shield of white energy protected Neville, Harry, Albus and Hermione from the fragments of Trinium hull plating that he had ordered beamed to intercept the Killing Curse. He sent a mental thank you to the _Achilles _AI for keeping tabs on the situation and for managing to adapt the transporter frequency to match that of the wards surrounding Hogwarts.

Harry dropped the shield and walked forward towards Bellatrix Lestrange.

The witch was lying on her back, her limbs sprawled awkwardly, and a small pool of dark blood was on the floor. The reason for this was obvious, as an ugly mangled piece of Trinium shrapnel had seemingly sprouted from her chest.

The dark witch that had ended and ruined so many lives was staring with dead sightless eyes up into the ceiling.

Neville had managed to get up and cradling his bleeding arm walked haltingly over towards the body.

"She was just too fast," he said softly. Not sure how to feel about the fact that his longtime personal enemy after so long was finally dead.

"That she was," confirmed Harry solemnly.

"What the hell happened?" asked Hermione, also coming forward examining the scene. "It happened so fast, but for a moment I thought you actually _blocked_ a Killing Curse." She didn't have to say that it was supposedly impossible.

"No," said Harry stoically. "I merely used the defensive technique that Albus pioneered. You know, summon something strong to stand in the way of the Curse. Only I didn't summon, I teleported this sheet of metal plating from the nearest metalworks factory. It's pure luck that the shrapnel killed Lestrange." Hermione looked at him in astonishment. "Luck favors the prepared."

"I am done," announced Albus, straightening up and with another wave of his wand metal manacles appeared and hog tied Snape.

"You have the wards?" asked Harry with a raised eyebrow. Albus nodded his eyes looking distant as he absorbed the information the castle was relaying to him.

"There are still fifteen Death Eaters at large and fighting in various parts of the castle but they are being rounded up as we speak by coordinated actions from the remaining Teams," reported Albus.

"How many did we lose?" asked Hermione grimly; as she tended to Neville's wound with a few Healing Charms.

"I cannot give an accurate summation," said Albus his eyes dimming, "but it is clear from the amount of dead in the castle that there have been heavy casualties. Whether the numbers will come out in our favor is impossible to tell at the moment."

"What about Riddle?" asked Harry darkly.

"The doors to the Great Hall has bean sealed from the inside, I believe Teams 8 and 9 have fortified the Entrance Hall and are covering the doors," said Albus.

"Let's go," said Harry and walked away from the dead body of Lestrange and back down the corridor.

The central staircase was a mess; scorched and cracked stonework, burning paintings, and smoke. Then there was the bodies; mostly of Death Eaters, either dead, moaning wounded or unconscious. They solemnly passed the occasional dead Auror, not having the time to do anything more than take in the carnage. Those Auror's uninjured or well enough that they could still move were flitting about between the bodies, helping their wounded comrades or stunning wounded Death Eaters to keep them silent. House-elves were also seen tending to the wounded acting as temporary field medics of sorts using their own form of magic to heal.

The group of four finally walked down the massive staircase that led down into the Entrance Hall. There battleworn looking Aurors, Goblins and Vampires had erected a barricade in a horseshoe pattern around the main doors.

A tired Kingsley Shacklebolt who had rumpled robes with a few tears (he had probably gone hand-to-hand in a few fights) and a long gash in his cheek that was bleeding approached them.

"Albus, Harry," nodded the man towards them.

"The wards are ours," stated Albus summarily.

"Good," said the Head Auror with relief. "We've been trying to get into the Great Hall, but the doors are warded heavily. I take it that's because Riddle is in there?" Albus nodded. "Why didn't he leave or try to escape?"

"I believe we've accomplished the strategic and tactical surprise we were hoping for, and I don't think he considered the sheer numbers we dedicated to this attack," said Albus in thought.

"But what about an escape Portkey? Why doesn't he use one?"

"He won't," said Albus confidently looking closely at the doors and running a hand along the smooth wooden surface, "these wards are impassable to you, but not to wizards such as myself and Harry. I believe he wants a confrontation with me and with Harry (though he doesn't know its Harry) to gauge us…then he will try to escape and regroup."

Harry walked through the barricade and regarded the shut doors. "Hermione, Neville," he beckoned for them to come closer. "After Albus and I go through I suggest you either join the barricade here or continue in the efforts to secure the castle. You are no match for Riddle and would only get in the way."

Hermione nodded looking grim. "Good luck Harry," she said, tears welling in her eyes and before anything more could be said she grabbed Neville by the elbow and led them off back into the castle to continue the fight.

Harry turned around and joined Albus at the doors to the Great Hall. They each rested their hands on a latch and they felt the enchantment on the doors weighing them, much like the Voldemort boat that crossed the lake of Inferi. Making sure his hood was secure Harry felt the wards blink off and twisted the latch.

They walked through into pitch darkness and the doors automatically swung shut behind them, closing off all light. Above them the enchanted ceiling showed a brilliant starfield, but it was not enough to provide any visible light in the Great Hall itself. Then the fires of torches that lines the Great Hall slowly came to life.

The Great Hall was a shell of its former self; gone were the house tables and house colours. The mullioned windows that usually gave the Hall its pristine atmosphere was covered up in thick suffocating black curtains. The large fireplace along the right side that usually provided warmth in the winter was boarded up and sealed. And completing this milieu of darkness was the black robed figure sitting in a veritable throne where the Headmaster would normally sit during mealtimes. The throne had a distinct serpentine motif; the armrests were actually statues of stretched snakes baring their fangs towards anyone who would approach, around the backrest more serpents coiled intricately.

Tom Riddle aka Voldemort sat with an inscrutable expression on his pale serpentlike visage; his bald head refracted the torchlight on it; his red slitted eyes took all around him as he stared at Harry and Albus. Around the dark wizard's feet were curled a large snake also staring at them silently, occasionally flicking its forked tongue to taste the air.

"Albus Dumbledore," said Voldemort with a hiss pre-echoing his words, "I suppose I should congratulate you on a victorious battle."

"Why thank you, Tom," said Albus magnanimously. Voldemort's slitlike nose seemed to automatically pulse in anger at the hated name. "Though I'm afraid the battle is far from over."

"You wish to challenge me again?" said Voldemort looking almost amused. "You will fail."

"Ah, setting too much store in prophecy, are we?" said Albus narrowing his eyes. "That would be a perilous mistake Tom. I would've thought your experience of thirteen years as nothing more than a weak disembodied spirit would have taught you that lesson." Albus shook his head, looking like a teacher disappointed in his student.

"It does not matter, old man," sneered Voldemort, "I have grown since our last encounter, while you have diminished."

"Perhaps," admitted Albus.

"And if you think that foolish wizard beside you can even hope to challenge me, then think again," said Voldemort. "No one can match my power. Potter was your last hope and he failed. And now you are using the legend of Merlin to inspire an uprising against me? How pathetic. I stayed to see who had managed to best my forces, and I what I find is a burnt out old fool and an impostor. You are neither worthy of finding death at my hands…I will leave now, and let you savor your precious little victory…but you will never win the war."

Voldemort touched a specific part of his throne, which would essentially turn the entire thing into a Portkey and take him and his beloved Nagini to his hidden base of operations. The throne, Voldemort and Nagini disappeared for a moment…and then reappeared.

"What?" said Voldemort in surprise. Nagini hissed in anger. They had expected to settle into the Portkey effect, but they had crashed against something and landed back where they had been. The wards should not have stopped it. Snape made the Portkey that enchanted the Throne when he had held the wards. Even should the old man now hold them, he could not have ordered the wards to rebuff the Portkey.

Harry smirked under his hood and stared at the glowing Asgard Jewel Device in his left hand. It was emitting a specific frequency of power that scrambled any matter transmission within Hogwarts. He handed it to Albus who put it in a pocket for safekeeping.

"Did I ruin your dramatic exit, Tommy boy?" said Harry, walking forward. "Tsk, tsk, sorry about that old boy, but we have a score to settle. And it's not something that can be done by correspondence."

Voldemort stood in anger, wand already in hand. Nagini slithered menacingly a few feet away to give her Master more room.

"Who are you to do this, puppet?" sneered Voldemort.

"Oh, I'm hardly a puppet, Tommy," said Harry, the amusement clear in his voice. "If anything, it's Albus over here that's the puppet. All the events leading up to this day have been set in motion by me. From the moment you captured me all those months ago, to my death in Diagon Alley, the past two month surge in Resistance activity, to this very attack."

Voldemort's eyes widened. Harry reached up to his cowl of his hood and pulled it away.

"Hello Tom," said Harry mockingly.

"IMPOSSIBLE!" roared Voldemort and a powerful dark violet colored spell rocketed towards Harry before any more was spoken. Harry's staff glowed bright blue and a dome of light cocooned him and deflected the energy back to Voldemort; who had to dodge his own spell.

"What?" said Harry in mock astonishment, "no, hello, no chit-chat?"

Voldemort shot a sickly looking ray of red power towards Harry; who dodged in a blur of movement.

"Very well, be that way," said Harry, and an arc of lightning emitted from his free left hand to connect with the head of his staff…that was all the warning Voldemort had before multiple chains of directed lightning shot towards him. Voldemort had to conjure a large shining silver shield to protect himself and the lightning (attracted to the metal conductor) arced in towards it and scored multiple hits…scorching the shield badly. However, the load of power was too great and the shield became overcharged with electrons and started to discharge towards the closest route towards the earth…

A charge hit Voldemort the equivalent of a heavy grade cattle prod.

"Arrgghhh," cried the dark wizard and fell back, losing his balance. The conjured shield dissipated into nothing as Voldemort lost focus and shifted it to maintaining consciousness and bleeding off the power that was coiling its way through his body. Finally, he managed and got back on his feet.

"Electric, isn't it?" quipped Harry, feeling as if he was channeling Jack O'Neill.

"You are DEAD!" shouted Voldemort. The dark wizard opened his mouth wide, bringing his free hand below it and wand above. A long, thick, coiling snake of flame shot out of his mouth and rocketed at high speed towards Harry.

Lifting his staff so that it was parallel to the ground and his free hand, palm facing towards Voldemort; a thick white mist appeared in front of Harry and not a moment later the mist shot out a massive river of itself towards the incoming flame. The snake of flame writhed and screamed and tried to push towards its target but it was being withered away by the white mist until it finally withered away into black smoke.

"There are many paths to immortality Tom," said Harry with a raised eyebrow, "and contrary to popular opinion, the majority of them are not rooted in darkness." He twirled his staff like a drum majorette and a volley of silver energy darts lanced in towards Voldemort. The dark wizard managed to dodge out of the way of most of them but one or two scored glances on him. The tearing of cloth was heard and Voldemort stopped dead for a moment.

The dark wizard raised his left arm. A hole the size of a penny was in his forearm leaking blood and multiple similar holes had appeared along the wide sleeve of his robes. Voldemort looked really livid now.

'_Crucio_', he said viciously.

Harry dodged by moving across Voldemort's line of fire before the spell could hit.

"Already into Unforgivables are we?" said Harry with narrowed eyes. Blue energy appeared in a ring around his feet and surged up his body. It coalesced around his staff and left hand; a speeding comet of blue energy now shot towards Voldemort, the humidity in the air froze upon contact with the frigid energy and left a trail of ice in its wake.

Voldemort whipped his wand towards the comet and it began to slow down noticeably. A blast of flame followed which reduced the freezing energy considerably but Voldemort saw he wouldn't be able to dispel it all and had to dodge the now football sized comet. It impacted on the serpentine throne and it instantly froze over…looking like it had been sitting on the surface of Antarctica for a long time.

It was then that Harry felt an assault on his mind through the connection between him and Voldemort; the result of the failed Killing Curse all those years ago. Both combatants became absolutely still, neither moved. To an outsiders perspective it looked like Harry and Voldemort were trying to glare each other to death. However, the battle had now shifted to the mental landscape of mind and thought. For ten minutes Harry dueled Voldemort; using will power as a shield and thoughts, emotions and memories as weapons.

Harry gritted his teeth and let out a guttural roar. Voldemort was finally shot out of his mind with such force that it translated into the physical world. The dark wizard stumbled backwards a few feet, looking dazed but swiftly recovered.

"_Avada Kedavra!_"

A jet of green light sped from Voldemort. Aimed not at Harry, but at Albus; who had been thoroughly enjoying watching the spectacle of this titanic battle. The old wizard had moved to the relative safety of the back of the Great Hall. Luckily, this meant that the Killing Curse had a fair bit of ground to cover before it could reach him. Albus flung himself into a sideways roll that he belatedly realized afterwards was more suited to be performed by a much younger body. The Killing Curse exploded into the wall behind which he had been standing, sending dust and debris into the air.

"I'm getting to old for this," he muttered grumpily, as he stood again wincing at his body's protests through numerous pains and aches.

Harry didn't bother to look back and see if Albus was all right, since that was what Voldemort was trying to achieve by attacking the older wizard. For his efforts Voldemort received a massive rippling bolt of energy from the head of Harry's staff that shattered another of the dark wizards conjured shields and a quick followup of a bolt of fire caused Voldemort's robes to catch alight.

It was an insignificant thing…if you had time to deal with it. Harry used the opening to fling his left hand forward and a telekinetic wave caught the dark wizard square in the face and launched him into the air as if he was shot out of a cannon. Voldemort crashed against the far corner of the Great Hall and fell hard to the ground.

"It's rather rude to target spectators," said Harry admonishingly, flicking his left hand back and forth with forefinger extended, "Naughty."

It was at this point that Nagini struck. The snake attacked from the side, mouth wide open, baring its fangs to sink into Harry's flesh. The snake bounced off Harry's personal shield that flickered into the visible spectrum with a green electric tint.

"_I haven't forgotten about you Nagini_," hissed Harry in Parseltongue. With a sweep of his hand the snake was banished across the room in Albus's direction. "You should do the honors Albus." Albus conjured an ethereal sword with a swish of his wand and animated it, and before the momentum of the snake could dissipate; the sword swung once, twice, three times.

"NOOOOOO!" screamed the hateful voice of Voldemort who was looking distinctly crispy around the legs as he stood up. There was an awful sound coming from the pieces of Nagini and a moment later a grey-black mist emerged only to be swept away by an unseen wind.

"Congratulations Tom," said Harry his staff's head now glowing permanently white…wisps of energy seemed to be coming out of nowhere and coalescing in a spiral around it. "I wish to welcome you back to conventional mortality." For the second time in Harry's life including the memories of his Clone, did he see fear enter into those pitiless red eyes; the first time being in the Graveyard in Little Hangleton when his Clone's wand linked into a power struggle with Voldemort's and today. "Six out of Seven…gone now…one more to go."

'AVADA KEDAVRA!'

The jet of green light came rushing at Harry, whom did not move to dodge or anything else. It was time to prove a final point before ending this.

He held up his left palm towards the oncoming energy…attached to it was an Asgard Jewel Device that he had prepared just for this occasion. No longer would this final curse have so much terror ascribed to it. The Device lit up with a white glow. Energy beyond normal human comprehension was turned to a relatively simple purpose…at least from the point of view of the Alterans and Asgard. Space itself bent and twisted in an inverted wedge in front of Harry's palm. The Killing Curse about to strike Harry suddenly twisted and changed direction. The green energy impacted a wall to the side and exploded, ripping out a chunk of stonework.

Harry dropped his left palm. Space twisted itself back in shape only to allow Harry to fling a large basketball sized collection of vacuum energy that had coalesced onto the head of his staff. It shot with the speed of a bullet and hit a stunned Voldemort (who couldn't believe what he had just seen Harry do) full on in the chest. It picked the dark wizard up and slammed him again into the wall.

The exotic energy snaked itself all over Voldemort also burning through him and a scream that was heard by every being within the castle resounded in their ears. It was a sound that no one would ever forget.

The body of Voldemort fell to the ground.

Harry and Albus cautiously approached.

Harry kicked over the still body and knelt to feel for a pulse. He stood again and looked at Albus.

"Dead," said Harry.

Albus nodded.

"Will you excuse me while I lay down for a while," said Harry with false cheeriness and promptly lay on his back, looking up into the starry sky of the enchanted ceiling. The weariness of channeling vacuum energy settled on him like a ton of bricks but he managed to stay conscious.

His revenge was taken. But all he felt was…nothing…there was no satisfaction…it was a hollow feeling. Harry didn't know how Teal'C could've felt like he did after killing Chronus…then again Harry hadn't been raised in a martial society.

Apparently, revenge is a dish best served cold. If that was the case…he didn't care for its taste.

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_A/N: The Wizard saga is drawing to a close. The next chapter, Harry will cross the bridge back onto the Galactic stage; but not before setting Wizardom on a new path. I hope you are satisfied with Harry vs. Voldemort. I had a couple of factors to weigh; chapter length, epicness, battle length, realism, the fact that Voldemort is surprised at Harry's 'resurrection' and can't process it or cope with it etc. In essence, Voldemort was caught with his pants down. _


	20. Chapter 20

_**Chapter Twenty – Transitions**_

Diagon Alley, London

The hidden enclave of magical commerce had never seen so many people squeezed into the long shopping alley. It was mid morning, and the sun shone brightly down on the crowd of wizards, witches, Goblins, Vampires, a few Centaurs and House-elves to name but a few. Not a single member of this crowd had come to do any shopping though. None were there to peruse for a new cauldron, buy new spellbooks, select Potions ingredients from the Apothecary, or to look for a new animal familiar. There was a din of excitement and celebration in the air. Every single head in the Alley was faced towards the end of it, where the snowy-white building that housed Gringotts Bank stood. A stage platform had been erected in front of the silver doors that protected entry to the Bank; on which stood a group of figures and an open casket.

Most prominent amongst the group on stage was Harry Potter resplendent in a set of fresh set of silver, gold and white Alteran robes and behind him stood Albus Dumbledore and a number of Aurors. Harry raised his staff into the air and a sudden hush fell upon the crowd.

"My fellow magical beings," stated Harry, his voice carrying itself all along the Alley. "It is true, what you have heard over the Wireless. Three days ago a Resistance Task Force led by Albus Dumbledore and myself liberated Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry…" There were cries of jubilation and victorious fists were raised into the air, Harry raised his staff again, and silence was prompted again, "…and in this second Battle of Hogwarts we have scored a massive victory against the darkness! Bellatrix Lestrange and her husband are both dead…" more victory exclamations were heard, "Severus Snape is in Resistance custody! Fenrir Greyback fell at the hands of Remus Lupin!" quite a few parents in the crowd breathed sighs of relief, as Voldemort had used Fenrir the werewolf as a spear of terror into parents hearts by threatening to infect their children with Lycanthropy. "Every Death Eater that was at Hogwarts is either dead or captured, the Dementors inhabiting the castle were scattered, and Vampires of the enemy were destroyed."

There were more cheers.

"But the price of this victory was high," said Harry gravely, "many Aurors, Goblins, Vampires and House-elves gave their lives for it. Their sacrifice must never be forgotten. They sacrificed their futures for our own. Every single friendly casualty in the battle will permanently memorialized in the Entrance Hall in Hogwarts. So that future generations will never forget of the blood that was spilt for them upon the altar of freedom!"

"It is also true…that He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, You-Know-Who, the Dark Lord, Voldemort, Tom Marvolo Riddle…is utterly and finally dead!"

Albus raised his wand and the open casket was tilted in mid-air to face the crowd, who gasped in astonishment. The corpse of Riddle with the massive hole in his chest was clear for all to see. Around the body were various trinkets…a cup, a locket, a ring, a frazzled diary, a burnt quill and most gruesomely the head of a large snake.

Harry launched into a brief explanation of Horcruxes and how Riddle used them to ensure he would remain within the realm of the living. He also explained how he also had apparently cheated death via Ascension…just as Merlin had done…and a visual demonstration of his brilliant white tendril-like aura obviously helped to prove his point.

"But let us not forget, that there will still be difficult times ahead! A time of rebirth! There are still members of Riddle's inner circle at large and while it's the Resistance's hope that they will be captured or killed soon, we must remain vigilant, for they will be desperate. And there is nothing more dangerous than an enemy near the moment of his defeat."

"Hear, hear," shouted a few members of the crowd.

"As such, until the situation is normalized the Resistance will continue to function as it has always done in the height of the darkness. Judging by the last time Voldemort's first reign ended, it will be a six months to a year before the Resistance will begin efforts to establish a government. However," said Harry his eyes becoming hard, "the stagnant, bigoted, monolithic beast that was the former Ministry of Magic will not be re-established!"

The brought astonished muttering from the crowd.

"Its policies marginalized numerous magical races and drove those races into the scheming web of Riddle's empty promises and lies. The werewolves, vampires and Giants especially! It also drove wedges amongst wizards…the so-called purity of blood; how many Muggleborns have fled the British Isles because of the war, diminishing their vital input into magical society? How many have died needlessly?"

"Therefore, the supreme governing body of Magical Britain will be the Council of Magical Races! Any matters whether economic or legal that affects all Magical Races will be the concern of all! While each race will retain its own sovereignty in matters that only effects itself."

"Now most of you will wonder how wizardom will govern itself then without a Ministry," he went on, "the answer to that after consultation with the Council of Magical Races and all former Ministry employees in exile is as follows: Executive Power in the new government for witches and wizards will never belong to a single individual; the bumbling and denial of Cornelius Fudge and face-saving of Scrimgeour nearly dragged us down into the abyss…never again!" The crowd cheered in response. "Instead, Power will be vested in a Supreme Council of Nine wizards and witches, selected by the Goblet of Fire. The identities of the Nine will remain secret, even they will not know who the other members are, and magical means will be employed to prevent them from knowing each other."

"The former Departments of the Ministry will be reformed under the Supreme Council and the Department Heads will appear before them to be issued orders and consulted on affairs of government. Further more pertinent details will be communicated through the Wireless and Owl Post to each magical household in the country."

"Now who could possibly become a Supreme Council member? Who do we trust with such a vital task? Only those who knows what its like to be at the bottom should rule from the top! Therefore, anyone who calls the British Isles their home can submit their name to the Goblet of Fire. Your next-door neighbor, the ordinary shopkeeper, your average Joe Wizard or Jane Witch could be a Council member, it doesn't matter…the Goblet will select those most worthy. Furthermore an obvious age restriction will be placed on those who can submit their names…you have to be between thirty and seventy years to submit your name. The upper age limit is there because there is only one constant in the Universe…change, and if wizardom does not change with the rest of world, it will stagnate and die! Such is the way of all things. Too often have the old graybeards sat in their Wizengamot seats to administrate over wizardom with antiquated points of view that have no bearing on vital issues facing the modern world and not addressing them! Tom Riddle…who became Voldemort was not a product of blood, but of a failure in the past to address the needs of orphaned magical children left to rot during World War 2."

Harry stopped speaking and gave a brief look at the astonished and solemn crowd.

"I leave you with these few thoughts…a truly noble man once said; 'think not what can be done for you, but what you can do for others.' While I say, the uncertain future is upon us, meet it with open eyes and minds, accept that which is different, for only with that can come true Enlightenment…"

Harry flared his aura into the visible spectrum and his form was blurred with white light, which with a chiming sound flashed and he was transported away.

**Hogwarts**

The aftermath of the second Battle and Harry's announcement would be felt far into the future in the annals of wizard history mused Albus Dumbledore to himself as he sat in his old Headmaster's Office, which at the moment was but a shade of its former self. Empty shelves and tables, the bookcases gone, no magnificent phoenix to converse with and brighten up the room…at least he had gotten rid of those horrid black curtains which had covered the great windows and also uncovered the numerous portraits of former Headmasters and Headmistresses whom were all delighted to see the light of day again.

He had been spending most of the morning filling in the exceedingly curious portraits of events and happenings. The main topic of intrigue had of course been about Harry…the topic of Ascension received its fair share of speculation, especially by the portrait of Dilys Derwent, the former Head Healer of St Mungo's Hospital.

"It would be interesting to see the specifics of what is needed to achieve it…" commented Dilys.

Albus nodded and was interrupted from replying when there was a knock on his Office door.

"Come in, Hermione," he said with a smile.

The brunette witch opened the door and closed it behind her, looking rather haggard but seemingly in slightly higher spirits than he ever remembered her being for a long time.

"Albus," she nodded and glanced up at the portraits, "I see you've been doing some redecorating."

"I thought it was long since time that they are displayed again," he said solemnly, "any luck on your end?"

"No one's seen no hide nor hair of Harry since the public address," she said with a rather sad sigh.

"He told us himself that he could not remain among us forever and that his time here is limited," said Albus solemnly.

"He could have at least said goodbye in person," she complained.

"And I will do so but only after a necessary conversation and a cup of tea," said a voice from the other side of the office. Hermione and Albus snapped their heads to the source of the voice. Harry stood there, still clad in those unique robes of his with his staff clutched in his right hand, and a lopsided grin on his face with sheer joy that shone from his emerald eyes.

"Harry!" and Hermione assaulted him with her characteristic bear hug. He chuckled at her antics and returned the hug.

"You didn't think I would leave without saying goodbye did you?" he said with a raised eyebrow, looking down at her.

"Well, you've become all mysterious and secretive and vague…and a lot of other things too numerous to mention…can you blame me?" she fired back.

"Perhaps not," he admitted and stepped out of her embrace. He greeted Albus with a handshake and a one armed hug. "It's good to see you again, old man."

"Indeed, my boy," nodded Albus.

"Well, I promised a cup of tea," said Harry with a mischievous looking grin, looking at both his friends, and raised a finger "stand absolutely still." Both Albus and Hermione looked at him in confusion, when Harry mentally contacted the _Achilles _AI and all three were encased in the white light of a transporter and winked out of the office.

They reappeared in a delightfully appointed circular room with three soft beige armchairs facing each other and a coffee table between them with a tea set ready for use. The walls were slightly curved and colored in soft grays, silver and white. The roof shone brightly and projected a soft light around the room that seemed to make everything slightly glow with an equally soft radiance. It gave a warm feeling of comfort, yet there was a slight din that resonated through the air that Harry knew neither Albus nor Hermione understood.

"It almost feels like when going through the teleport at Glastonbury," said Hermione looking around the room and frowning as she inwardly tried to catalogue the feeling. Harry smiled at her tenacious drive to understand everything around her and merely gestured for the two to sit. He leant his staff against his own armchair and sat down and began serving them tea.

When they had a saucer and cup in their hands he began.

"Welcome to my home away from home, so to speak," said Harry with a grin. "I call this place '_Achilles_'"

"Strange name for a place or a home for that matter," murmured Hermione taking a sip of her tea.

"In reference to the Greek Hero, of course," said Albus, "it has some significance?" he asked of Harry.

"Yes, but it will not make sense to you," said Harry, "I obviously admire some qualities of Achilles and even identify with him in some respects but not all. But I digress, you recall in my speech in Diagon Alley that I referred to an uncertain future? Well, I am here to enlighten you on some avenues that future may take and how appropriate steps must be taken by the magical world to prepare itself."

"What do you mean?" asked Hermione.

"You recall I told you that there are battles to be fought beyond this world? That the fight against Voldemort was but a minor struggle," his guests nodded looking slightly disgruntled, "I don't mean to demean it, the greatest battle is fought within the heart, between good and evil and in that respect this War was a titanic struggle…no, I am merely talking in reference to its scale."

"Beyond the world…large scale…" murmured Hermione, clearly trying to reason it out.

"Let me help that thought process, Hermione," said Harry with a cheeky grin. "You are about to witness something that fewer than a hundred people have ever seen." He gestured with his hand to one of the curved walls and there was a drone of noise and the wall slid down to reveal the beautiful blue and speckled white orb of Earth dominating the lower part of the large viewport while the inky blackness of space stretched into infinity above it.

Hermione had frozen with her cup halfway to her mouth as her wide eyes took in the scenery from out the window. Albus blinked a few times and rubbed his eyes as if clearing it and stared transfixed at the Earth. They remained like this for a few seconds trying to comprehend it and suddenly the tableau was broken when there was clinking of a teacup breaking as Hermione rushed out of her seat towards the large viewport and taking in the scene with fascination.

"Good Lord!" exclaimed Albus standing at a more gingerly pace and joined Hermione staring out at the planet of their birth from mid-orbit. Harry allowed them their time to 'take it all in', and when it had passed the inevitable storm of rapid-fire questions deluged from her.

"There's no window? Why aren't we weightless? Is this a space ship or just an illusion? How did you get it? Why are we here? What…"

"Whoah, whoah," said Harry is exasperation, standing up and coming to stand behind her and placed his hands on her shoulders; sending feelings of calm and relaxation through her. Her wild incredulous eyes died down a bit and she let out a heavy breath and visibly deflated from the tension and fear leaving her. "I will answer most of your questions that you both have, but only those that you need to know," he looked at the visibly stunned Albus and moved a hand to his shoulder to snap him out of it.

"So?" asked Hermione with a touch of exasperation, gesturing to the view out the window.

"Yes, we are on a ship that travels in the void between stars," nodded Harry, "and Albus can most assuredly tell you this is not an illusion. Albus?"

The old man took a rasping breath as if he was struggling to master his own emotions and said, "What is beyond is no illusion Hermione…I can sense that quite clearly."

"And weightlessness?"

"A field of energy that emanates from the floor, creating an artificial gravitational attraction to itself, I bet you can think of a spell that has the same effect?"

"An inverted Levicorpus…anti-gravity mist…I'll have to research any other ones," she said with a frown.

"How does it travel between the stars?" asked Albus, who had seemingly recovered sufficiently for his prodigious intelligence to come forward. "I was a rather accomplished Astronomer in my day and the sheer distances between them means any theoretical journey would take lifetimes."

"True," said Harry, "however, to explain this to you in terms you would understand is quite…a challenge, hmmm," he mused, "Ah, I got it. Our Universe or Reality is much like an onion. The one we naturally occupy is the outer layer of the onion. In this outer layer we are constrained by Einstein's Laws of Motion that a body or object cannot exceed the speed of light without access to near infinite energy. And even if we did have Infinite energy it would still take years to cross interstellar distances, not to mention the relativistic effects of Time…the closer you get to the speed of light the more time slows down for you."

"So the answer is simple…burrow a hole in our 'natural' layer and go deeper into the onion…a place simply called 'Subspace' where those pesky Laws of Motion don't apply any more."

"Isn't that…dangerous? Burrowing a hole in the fabric of reality?" asked Hermione with wide eyes.

"Of course it is," said Harry with an astonished look, "but not if you take certain precautions and have knowledge of how to do it properly. With this ship, at full power, I could jump to Proxima Centauri in less than a second."

"Wow," breathed Hermione in awe. Albus merely shook his head in silent astonishment.

"Now, I need to show you the reason why I disclosed this to you," explained Harry, turned away from them and picked up his staff. "Follow me." Albus and Hermione stepped in his wake as they approached the other side of the room. A door parted seamlessly out of the wall and he led the way into the octagonal corridors of the ship. Harry noticed how Hermione looked absolutely fascinated with the mathematical design of the corridors and various odds and ends in it…the buttons, the lights and so forth. He also noticed that Albus was eyeing the various signs on the hallways that were written in Alteran…no doubt he had made the connection to Merlin's Journal.

"Ah, here we are," said Harry and waved his hand over a panel next to a large door. It split open automatically and they entered an octagonal sided room. On the ceiling and floor were glowing, raised transparent panels slotted together to form a hexagram that faced each other. On one end of the hexagram nearest to the door was a raised pillar. Harry walked over to it and placed his hand on it; the pillar's flat surface immediately glowed blue and he sent mental instructions to the computer. There was a ringing sound and a flash of a transporter and a large transparent tank containing a special clear fluid appeared just off to his right. "Come closer," gestured Harry to the other two. They hesitantly complied and looked into the cylindrical tank. Swimming inside was what Hermione initially thought a snake. Then she noticed the little details that made this thing hardly a snake…she noticed the fins, the sharp four pronged mandibles, the crystal eyes…

"What is that?" she breathed. Harry looked at her gravely.

"The enemy," he answered simply.

"It doesn't seem very dangerous," mused Albus with narrowed eyes, "then again, appearances can be deceiving. Am I right?"

"Indeed," said Harry. "What you are looking at is a parasitic alien species…that finds the human body a very nice place to live and control." He turned towards the pillar again and in between the raised hexagons a hologram appeared showing a rendered human torso and an animation of a Goa'uld symbiote entering it; wrapping itself around the spinal column and extending neural links into the back of the brain. Harry proceeded to give a brief history of how nine thousand odd years ago the Goa'uld encountered Earth and found that humanity was a superior host than the previous bipedal lizard like first hosts on the ancient Goa'uld homeworld. How they posed as Gods of various Classical Pantheons and took humanity and seeded them on other worlds to use as slaves. How the physically strongest humans were genetically altered into the Jaffa warrior race. He also showed them a strategic map of the Galaxy. And gave an overview of the Feudal System Lords. Afterwards, to say that they were again overwhelmed would be an understatement and Harry had to soothe Hermione empathically with his hands.

"Harry…w…why…show us this?" muttered Hermione with wide eyes. "What could we possibly do against a race as powerful as…them?"

"I have a feeling that Harry told us the bad news first to get it over with," mused Albus, stroking his beard contemplatively. The old wizard really was a master of his own mind. "And to give us an appreciation of what could happen…you expect there will be an invasion of Earth?"

"It's possible," conceded Harry. "But unlikely. Albus is correct. I gave you the bad part first…now for the good. Earth is protected via treaty by a race more powerful than the Goa'uld; the Asgard. They represent a 'good' Pantheon of Gods or 'aliens' that was present on Earth…namely the Vikings. I'm good friends with them and I represent them on Earth." Harry brought up a hologram of a typical Asgard.

"That's uncanny," said Hermione, latching on to the familiar image. "Those look like the Roswell Greys."

"Sad story that," nodded Harry. "But not really important to the matter at hand. The problem with the Asgard is that they actually call another Galaxy their home and they are currently occupied with a war there. Very limited resources and ships can be spared to maintain the Protected Planets Treaty. However, they have gained a decisive advantage and within another few months expect complete victory over their enemy. After which they have promised to aid Earth in its various endeavors."

"Also, weighing in on our side is also a 'sub species' of symbiotes, they take human hosts but it is voluntary on the part of the host and both personalities share consciousness equally, they are known as the Tok'ra or roughly translated 'Resistance.' However, they do not have the military resources of the Goa'uld and are forced to use deception, infiltration, sabotage, and spying to achieve their aims."

"And finally there is a small but growing rebellion among the Jaffa against their Goa'uld masters, it is uncertain whether it will hold out or grow, but with a few more strategic victories…we can but hope."

"You say you represent the Asgard on Earth," said Albus, "that implies that one or more governments know of this."

"Yes," said Harry with a nod. "But I have been authorized by the Asgard to brief you both on it as leading figures of the Resistance and in the future you will be highly placed to influence Magical Britain. At the moment, the United States is the only country aware of the full situation."

"Why?" said Hermione looking indignant. "This is a threat to the entire planet and they hoard the knowledge of it!"

"Initially, because America had the only device capable of allowing Interstellar travel without the use of a starship," said Harry and a hologram appeared of the Stargate; which he began to explain, its use, how it was found in Giza 1928 and how it was finally deciphered fully in 1995 with the first team going through and resuming its use two years later with the establishment of the SGC after Apophis came through the gate.

"So the American military is involved in the struggle as well," said Albus with a sigh, shaking his head. "Americans exploring the Galaxy, God help us."

"Just what can they do against the Goa'uld?" asked Hermione dubiously.

"Oh, you'd be surprised just how effective Earth is at throwing a spanner in the works," said Harry with a chuckle. He gave a brief summation of how some System Lords met their end at the hands of the soldiers and teams of the SGC. Ra got very familiar with a nuke ringed aboard his Ha'tak. Apophis'first attack on Earth thwarted by cunning sabotage of his ships. Hathor chucked into a cryogenic pit. Apophis's fleet got toasty with a Supernova while the Asgard took care of him personally. Sokar became a bright firework with his ship above his homeworld. Chronus dead at the hands of Teal'C. And various other tactical successes.

"But anyway, the Americans realize they can't foot the bill in money and manpower to fight this war on its own, so plans are underway to disclose this information to countries that can provide strategic and material resources for this fight. Obviously any technological gains made in the interim by America will be shared and disclosed fully, something I intend to make personally sure of."

"So what do you feel we, as in Magical Britain, could contribute?" said Albus with a frown. "This fight is quite out of our league."

"My only intention was to inform you of the situation," explained Harry gravely. "So that if we fail in preventing a large scale attack and invasion of Earth that you would not be wholly surprised by it. And in the interim you could take subtle steps to prepare the Magical Races for this eventuality." There was a flash of light and a laptop computer appeared in front of Hermione's feet. She gingerly picked it up and opened it.

"Seems ordinary," she commented.

"Only on the surface," said Harry with grin. "I've modified so it can work in any area like Hogwarts. It actually draws power from the ambient energy of Earth's electromagnetic field…so you don't have to worry about recharging it. It carries more detailed information on everything you've learned here today. I also included a few recommendations of skills and spells that should be learned to counter any Jaffa and/or Goa'uld. The information is keyed to your DNA and unique magical signature, so no one else can access the data."

She nodded and tucked the laptop under her arm.

"Also, there might come a time when I ask for either or both of your assistance. I am only one person and often two or three heads are better than one. I will try to be discreet about it, but often time will be against us and I might need to teleport you out from whatever you are doing."

"Any further questions?"

"I have millions," said Hermione chuckling ruefully, "but I'm sure this," she pointed to the laptop, "will answer all or most of them."

"I have a question in addition to the millions, that I hope you can address," said Albus his eyes twinkling in mirth. Harry nodded giving permission to ask them. "I noticed that this ship is filled with the script in Merlin's Journal…is this an indication that Merlin was an…alien?" Harry smiled with a great grin at that question.

"No, Merlin was not 'technically' an alien as such," answered Harry chuckling. "He belongs to the ancient race that built the Stargates. A race that we have many names for…the Ancients, the Gatebuilders, the Alterans, the Builders of Roads."

"Bane called you an Ancient One," said Hermione with wide eyes.

"And there you have it," said Harry with a triumphant grin, and he didn't even have to break Merlin's rules to do it. "I am genetically an Ancient One…what does that make you Hermione, Albus?" The old wizard frowned for a moment in thought before his eyes widened in astonishment.

"Are you saying," said Albus seriously, "that the origin of our power, of wizardry, is because we are…descendants of this Ancient race?"

"I can't confirm or deny, you'll have to make up your own mind," said Harry, looking apologetic, "Merlin left behind some rather strict rules about how he envisioned wizardom to move forward…to enlighten you as to our true origins is against his wishes."

"But isn't that what you've just done?" asked Hermione incredulously.

"No," said Harry looking astonished, "you've drawn a conclusion from circumstantial evidence and my words. And my words could be all a load of tripe."

"Oh," said Hermione with an air of enlightenment, "how very Slytherin of you. You're talking between the lines and all that."

"And it's not like you have any hard evidence," said Harry with a lopsided grin, "I mean…who would believe that I've just whisked you out of Hogwarts onto a starship that can travel the Galaxies? Unless they'd seen it with their own eyes."

"No one," said Hermione rather disgustedly, "they'd think we've gone bonkers."

"Precisely," said Harry with a soft grin, "and now it's time to part ways…for the time being. The Galaxy needs saving." Hermione nodded and stepped forward to give him a long hug, but as she parted it seemed she instinctually grabbed him by the head and dived into teary, near soul wrenching kiss. He allowed her this last moment and after they separated she wiped her eyes clear rather furiously and sniffed.

Harry and Albus also exchanged a one-arm hug. "Until we meet again," said the old wizard somberly.

"It will be so, God speed," said Harry with a nod and stepped back. He raised his hand in goodbye and after a mental order to the AI, both wizard and witch were encased in white light there was a chiming noise and they were transported back into Hogwarts.

"I will miss them both," said a longing voice from behind Harry. He turned around and regarded the two figures that had appeared there.

"They will find their way along the path," said Harry looking at the vital, and healthy form of his identical cloned brother, dressed in the black robes of a Hogwarts student.

"They are both needed in the 'magical world' Harold, especially at this critical juncture in its history," said Oma Desala, the other stately dressed figure, addressing Harry's brother by his formal name to differentiate between the two.

"Yeah," said Harold with a sigh, "I just hope I can see her again soon."

"You will," said Harry confidently, "now that she knows of the Path of Ascension, do you really think that she wouldn't try it after a living a full life on this plane of existence?"

"Knowing her," said Harold with a chuckle, "I wouldn't be surprised if she bullies the knowledge out of Albus eventually."

Harry nodded in agreement, "Now, I think it's time that I get back to my children, Apollonia is already grumbling about my absence for this as it is."

"Congratulations, by the way," said Harold with a thumbs up.

"Thanks," said Harry with a grin, "now you behave yourself on the higher plane, Ok? Listen to Oma. She helped you Ascend as a favor to me, it would be poor form to go and repay her and me by having the other Ascended slap you back down for a serious rule infraction."

"Yeah, yeah, I understand," said Harold.

"It's time," said Oma with a hand on Harold's shoulder.

"See ya later," said Harry with a nonchalant wave as both figures dissolved into bright beings of coalescent white energy with multiple squid like tendrils. They both moved through the air as if moving through water and a moment later vanished.

Infirmary, SGC, Earth

There weren't words to describe Harry's feelings as he held two sleeping bundles on either arm and surveyed their plump little peaceful faces. Doctor Frasier had decided to follow the long custom of wrapping the two babies according to color depending on their gender…hence pink and blue. He felt like he could stare at them all day long…they were beautiful and perfect and…well, words cannot convey the spirit, so he did not bother to try and rationalize his feelings in his mind. He looked up from where he was sitting towards the bed the twins' tired mother was sleeping in. His heart burst with emotion again and he thanked the Infinite Creator for blessing him with this wonderful woman to carry and bring his children into the world.

If he'd open his mind to Universe it would seem as if he was carrying two stars in his arms…instead of babies, so bright was the essence of their beings.

He heard the tapping of high heels behind and Doc Frasier came into view and gave a smile and nod in his direction as she discreetly checked his wife's vitals and made notes of them on a medical clipboard.

"How are you feeling?" she whispered.

"It's difficult to explain," he answered with a grin in return.

"I can only imagine," said Doc ruefully. "I mean, I know I've got Cassie but she was adopted, and my career has pretty much come first in my life…hardly have time for a boyfriend or husband."

"If only raising Cassandra is what makes you happy in this life, then do it, Doc," said Harry with a twinkling eye.

"Yeah," said Janet softly, "it's just, seeing you and Apollonia go through these moments…it makes me slightly envious." With that Janet finished and headed back to her main office. Harry remained by his wife's bedside for the next hour, occasionally getting up to stretch his legs. To prevent the movement from waking his two sleeping infants he created a slight levitation effect so that they hovered just above his arms as he walked.

"Don't do that," came a sleepy voice from the bed. Harry smiled at his wife as she sat up and yawned.

"Do what, my dear?"

"Levitate them," she answered with a pointed look. He smiled sheepishly and let the two infants softly lower into his arms. He walked over and handed one of them carefully to his wife. She carefully cradled the girl in her arms and looked lovingly at her for a moment.

"How are you feeling?"

"Physically I've been better," she said ruefully. "But emotionally I've never been as happy as I am now." Harry nodded in understanding. "It's amazing if you think about it," she continued, "I'm a mother. I mean ten years ago I was training to be a Priestess and remain a virgin for the rest of my life and now…" She laughed and her eyes fell on the infant in her arms again.

"We make plans for our future," said Harry with a grin, "and the Creator laughs at us."

"Too true," she said.

"I love you," said Harry his eyes dead serious, meeting hers. "Together we made both these little miracles."

"And I you," she said stroking his face lovingly and communing in shared feelings for a moment. "And I would hardly call these 'little'." Harry grinned in agreement.

"So what's been happening around here lately?" asked Harry.

"Well, since Apophis' death, things have been rather quiet on the Goa'uld front, at least where Earth is concerned," said Apollonia. "However, the System Lords have returned to their feudal ways and are fighting each other again."

"That's good for us, at least," stated Harry.

"We had one close call though," said Apollonia, looking grim. "We found a very powerful weapon system on a decimated world called Velona. To make a long story short, the weapon system was built under the guidance of a sympathetic Ascended Ancient called Orlin, who wanted to help the people resist the Goa'uld. They resisted all right and the Goa'uld were defeated, but it turned out that the people turned their eyes towards conquest afterwards."

"Oh boy," said Harry with a sigh, knowing the level of belief the Ancients had about non-interference and free will. "The other Ascended stepped in at that point, didn't they?"

"To put it mildly," said Apollonia with wide eyes. "They destroyed the people of Velona and banished Orlin onto the planet surface to watch the consequences of his own actions. SG1's presence afforded Orlin an opportunity to escape to Earth. The SGC and the Pentagon was of course interested in the weapon as well. But they and I did not understand the true origins of the weapon at the time, nor what the Ancients would do if Earth benefited from it as well."

"Oh, that's just great," said Harry in exasperation, "that would be the supreme irony, after all my efforts to secure Earth and save it, and then it would be all for naught when my Ancient ancestors swoop down and wipe us out to balance the books again."

"Indeed," she said dryly, "Orlin had in the meantime retaken human form…I think he was rather smitten with Sam…so he could be with her. Of course, the NID had other ideas, and tried to apprehend him but he managed to make a one use Stargate in her house's basement to escape back to Velona and prevent the weapon test but was killed in the process. He ascended with help from the Ancients who apparently felt he had been punished enough."

"Next time I see Oma, I should tell her to pass along my thanks to him," said Harry with a relieved grin. "Anything else?"

"Oh yeah, I had to take SG1 on the _Briseus_ to a planet called K'Tau. Their initial trip through the Stargate to the planet had inadvertently gone though the System's sun," said Apollonia, looking pointedly at her husband, knowing he didn't need her to explain what that would happen if this occurred. Harry knew that since the Dialing computer was of Terran origin that it wouldn't have many of the Alteran safety protocols built into the DHD devices that controlled the Stargates across the Galaxy. Hence the Stargate wouldn't be instructed to 'bend' the wormhole around the K'Tau sun.

"A superheavy element contaminated the fusion reaction within the sun," concluded Harry with a raised eyebrow.

"It changed the sunlight to…what did Sam say…oh, it shifted the sun to radiate in the infrared frequency," she said with a frown. Harry had over the years managed to educate his wife to a reasonable level in the sciences but she still struggled with some aspects, despite his best efforts. He hoped that she would soon approach that 'door' within her mind that held the legacy of their Ascended ancestors and allow some of that knowledge and understanding to come forward. "They also first had to convince another civilian scientist to part with his life's work in creating a similar artificial superheavy element…a Dr Maclaren."

"Giving him a tour of this place ought to have done the trick," speculated Harry with a grin. He filed the name away in the back of his mind…he was definitely going to speak to Dr Maclaren on helping with the 'anti-matter' research.

"When Dr Maclaren learned that his new element would help save an entire civilization and planet he obviously agreed, Sam even said she would file the request to have his new element named after him," she said with a pleased smile.

"He deserves that," agreed Harry immediately.

The Infirmary doors opened and Sam herself walked in dressed in casual green BDUs with a happy smile on her face as she spied the couple.

"Good evening, Sam," said Apollonia with a grin.

"Hey, Sam," waved Harry.

"Good evening you two," said the Major fondly. "How are our little guests today?"

"Still sleeping," said Harry grinning at the sleeping form of his baby son.

"Have you given any thoughts as to names? Because Teal'C apparently wants to do some or other Jaffa blessing for the newborns and he has been…persistent that I ask you." Harry stared at his wife and met her eyes, for a few moments they just looked at each other and then blinked and nodded.

"The boy's name will be Jason," said Harry.

"The girl's name is Alexandra," said Apollonia.

"Nice," said Sam with a grin and turned to Harry. "That incoming wormhole a few hours ago had a message from Tollana."

"Oh?"

"We, as in SG1 and you, have been invited to attend a funeral," said Sam her smile fading somewhat.

"Who?"

"Omoc," said Sam.

"Damn," said Harry with a frown. "I didn't like the guy but…does it mention how he died?"

"Heart attack, apparently," she said.

"When is it scheduled for?"

"Two days from now."

"Well, I guess I should go and pay my last respects then," said Harry matter-of-factly.

_The final fate of the Clone is revealed; his mind was just too damaged for conventional treatments even Alteran medicine to work. So Harry appealed to Oma for help. I settled on making it a bittersweet resolution to that plot thread. And yes, I do have plans for Ascended Harold in the future. So Click on the next button, I've got another chapter for you… _


	21. Chapter 21

_**Chapter Twenty One – Between Two Fires**_

Tollana, Capital City, Government Complex

It was a drab and cloudy day in the Capital City of one of the most advanced human civilizations in the Galaxy. The level of technology was readily apparent in the design and structure of the Government Complex that also housed the Stargate of Tollana, one that was built by the Tollans themselves and not the Ancients. The complex was a pristine mix of gardens, gray buildings situated on a large sprawling campus. Underneath one of the stilted wings of the buildings that allowed passage underneath a group of nine figures had gathered. The complex around the group was seemingly deserted, the reasons for this was that it was a day of mourning for a fallen leader.

"Though we should not mourn the passing of our friend Omoc, as much as we should celebrate his existence. He helped us through one of the greatest challenges in our recent history. His efforts contributed to the rebirth of our great nation as it stands today," said Narim solemnly, dressed in a strange blend between formal robes and normal attire. "He shall always be remembered."

An older gray haired woman, much smaller than Narim, dressed in elegantly cut gray robes walked forward towards a chrome podium. Her expression carefully neutral as she waved her hand over the podium, an eternal flame burst forth from it. Harry, dressed in his Alteran robes, carefully observed this woman. Her name was Travell and she was the Chairwoman for the Tollan Curia – their highest governing body. His reason for this was that he had sensed an aura of desperation around the woman, which he could not pin down the reason for. It was an odd emotion to feel at a funeral.

Sam in her formal dark blue Air Force Dress uniform turned to Narim and said, "Very nice."

"Very…intimate," said Jack with raised eyebrow and also in his dress uniform. Daniel and Teal'C had both dressed in formal black suits and ties, but had brown jackets over them to shield against the soft rain.

"Councilor Omoc was well aware that he had very few friends," said Narim solemnly. "He was not concerned with trivial relationships. In his testament he asked that his funeral only be attended by those he respected." Harry understood this, but it was clear that his friends did not.

"Umm…no offense," said Daniel uncomfortably, "but what are WE doing here?"

"He might not have shown you much warmth or affection," replied Narim, "but I can tell you, that he most definitely had a great deal of reverence for all of you."

"As do we all," said Travelle, joining the conversation with her two bulky bodyguards in high tech armor behind her. "Colonel O'Neill, please know that we have not dismissed what you have done for Tollana."

"Don't mention it," said Jack and his voice carried a tiny bit of sarcasm as he continued, "We appreciate everything you've done for us…too."

Travelle smiled slightly at his tone, clearly not offended at all. "If you are referring to our policy of not sharing technology I suggest renewing such a discussion at another time and place." It took all of Harry's self-control over his own mind and body not to stare at Travelle.

_The Tollan actually sharing their technology with anyone else_, he thought incredulously. Narim, who had none of Harry's abilities, stared at Travelle in open shock.

"Really?" said Jack looking surprised.

"The Tollan Curia has recessed for a day of mourning out of respect for Omoc, would you agree to coming back tomorrow to discuss this with me?" said the old woman.

Jack shared a look with Sam and said, "Sure."

"Thank you all for coming here, Colonel, Ambassador Harry," bowing her head slightly. "Narim, would you please show our guests to the Stargate?"

SG1 and Harry followed Narim away from the memorial site and walked up a nearby set of stairs towards the raised area where the silver-white Tollan Stargate sat.

"Any idea what's she's talking about back there?" asked Jack of Narim.

"I was as surprised as you by her invitation," responded Narim.

"Chancellor Travelle seemed to suggest that the Tollan Curia may be willing to share its technology," said Teal'C stoically.

"I highly doubt that," disagreed Narim, "she merely said that they would be willing to discuss it with you."

"You'd think she'd invite us back if things were status quo?" asked Daniel curiously.

"I'm not on the Curia," said Narim as the Tollan Stargate began engaging. "I really have no idea what she wishes to see you about." The Stargate engaged its subspace path with the kawoosh of waterlike plasma. "Have a safe trip home." Harry exchanged nods with Narim and stepped through the gate. After a brief disembodied ride through subspace he stepped into the SGC and walked down the embarkation ramp. He was not really surprised to see that Sam was a tad tardy in stepping through the gate. Obviously she had remained to give Narim a friendlier goodbye. It was a surprise to see her calling the attention of Jack and himself after she did eventually come through.

"Sir, Ambassador," she said. "Narim surreptitiously just handed me this." She opened her closed left hand and Harry saw a small Tollan holo device in her palm. It was usually used to record a secure holographic message and courier the device physically to its intended recipient allowing for higher signals security. The small device activated and a small version of Narim was projected above Sam's hand…a Narim that looked very concerned and grave.

"Samantha," said Narim, "I'm sorry I was not able to tell you this in person. I do not know whom I can trust. Omoc gave me a warning, and I believe it to be true. Earth is in danger."

Afterwards they had quickly asked for an emergency briefing with General Hammond to discuss this. Harry knew Narim well, despite his distaste for Tollan policy or their conduct as a society, and the man was not one to make such statements idly.

"Narim gave you no other indication that something was wrong?" said Hammond after watching the hologram again in the Briefing Room.

"No, Sir," said Sam in confusion, "everything was fine."

"For a funeral," retorted Jack sarcastically.

"You have to admit it was strange that there was so few people there," said Daniel in thought.

"Hey, you knew him…what's strange?" asked Jack with a raised eyebrow. Daniel grinned and conceded the point.

"Whatever he meant," said Sam in turn, "I'd be willing to bet that Omoc's warning had something to do with what Travelle wants to meet with us about."

"Ambassador, your opinion?" asked Hammond politely. Harry gave a sigh and stared out the window at the Stargate for a moment appearing in deep thought.

"If indeed the Tollan are considering opening a dialogue with regards to a technology exchange with Earth I would say wholeheartedly…go for it," he said, but then frowned. "However, this message of warning from Narim and Omoc's death points to something darker behind the scenes."

"Well, there's only one way to find out," said Hammond, "let's see what they have to say."

They had returned to Tollana the following day. Jack and Daniel had gone to speak with Travelle a few hours ago while Harry, Sam and Teal'C sat on a public bench near a fountain in the busy governmental complex waiting for Narim. As always when on assignment Harry was openly wearing his chromesuit, while his comrades donned standard SG field gear with no weapons.

"I want to thank you again Teal'C for the Jaffa blessing you gave my children yesterday," said Harry with a respectful nod at the big Jaffa. "My wife appreciated it."

"You are most welcome, Ambassador," said Teal'C bowing his head.

"How is Apollonia managing on Seaworld?" asked Sam curiously.

"She is doing fine," answered Harry with a sigh. "When I am not there she employs 'Nannybots' that I designed to help her out in various tasks around the house and caring for the infants and a few of the Asgard stationed there also help out when they can. Either are a poor substitute for my presence…but it can't be helped."

"I know well of this feeling," stated Teal'C with a rare bout of compassion in his voice for his fellow warrior. Teal'C was obviously referring to the fact that he missed a great deal of his own son, Ry'ac's, growth…all thanks to the fight against the Goa'uld.

An approaching Narim, dressed in his more normal ribbed gray jacket and pants with calf length boots, interrupted their conversation at this point. They stood to greet him.

"Forgive me, Samantha, Teal'C, Ambassador, my duties have not allowed me to get away before now."

"It's OK, you all right?" she asked in concern, for Narim was indeed looking very troubled.

"Yes, I'm fine."

"You look troubled," insisted Sam. Narim motioned for them to follow him on a roundabout of the quadrangle they were in.

"I apologize for sending that message the way I did. There were so many extra security forces around yesterday, I really didn't know who I could trust…except you, of course."

"What situation would force you to trust strangers or in Sam's case, distant friends, more than your own people?" asked Harry with an arched eyebrow.

"I have few verifiable facts, Ambassador," said Narim, "but what I do have is enough to make me do so. Omoc's warning is enough for me to conclude that the threat to Earth exists. Omoc was not one to make idle statements."

"That is true," agreed Harry.

"He also seemed to be under a great strain lately," said Narim further.

"Which might explain the heart attack," opinioned Sam. Daniel and Jack entered the quadrangle at that point and spied them talking with Narim, they had obviously concluded their meeting with Travelle. Harry sensed a mixture of excitement and incredulousness radiating from them as they approached.

"Colonel O'Neill, Dr Jackson," said Narim, bowing his head slightly in greeting.

"What did Chancellor Travelle say?" asked Sam curiously.

"She offered us an Ion Cannon," said Jack in an astonished tone. Harry blinked at that…the Tollan offering their powerful Ion Cannons to Earth…it was unexpected to say the least. Had the Tollan finally got their heads out of the sand?

"I don't believe it!" exclaimed Narim.

"Neither did we!" said Jack.

"In exchange for trinium," added Daniel.

"That's impossible! The Curia would never agree to that!" said Narim vehemently.

"Well, apparently, Omoc was the swing vote," explained Daniel. That made weird sense to Harry. Surely some of the Tollan would have developed some foresight about changing their isolationist ways after that time when their entire defense grid was wiped out in one swoop thanks to some clever Goa'uld tactics of misdirection. The entire planet was saved only due to the efforts of Teal'C and the visiting Nox representative.

"But that goes against everything we've stood for!" complained Narim.

"Do you think this is what Omoc was so worried about?" asked Sam with a frown at her close friend.

"Of course, it must have been. As you know, another world destroyed itself because we shared technology with them. That's why we have so strongly resisted sharing our technology with more primitive societies."

"You know, we prefer 'Less Advanced' if you don't mind," said Jack archly.

"My apologies. You know what I meant. If used the wrong way, this Ion Cannon could lead you to disaster," said Narim gravely.

SGC Briefing Room, Earth

The main projection screen of the briefing room showed a pretty accurate diagram of a Tollan Ion Cannon, included in formally typed notations on the sides of the graphic was everything known to the SGC about them…which frankly wasn't much. Sam was leading the briefing, gesturing with a laser pointer and a remote to advance the digital projection of the bulbous looking cannon. Harry knew the principles behind the thing but not the specifics, it was a unique Tollan weapon and the Alteran's had never bothered using ion's in an energy weapon system.

"The Tollan Ion Beam technology is very advanced. Now, even though we've learned a lot from the weapons on our captured Goa'uld Ha'tak mothership, I don't believe we know enough to adapt this and backward engineer for mass production on Earth. And that poses a bigger problem."

"How so?" asked Hammond.

"Well, Sir. Even strategically placed in say … Washington D.C., one ion cannon provides very little range of defense coverage for a planet the size of Earth. Even if we could mobilize it, a fleet of Goa'uld mother ship could still easily strike at will." She illustrated this by displaying a red dot at the location of the US capital city and a circular radius fanned out from the dot…it barely covered the Eastern Seaboard.

"Not to mention that the cannon would be quickly spotted wherever it was deployed, those things aren't exactly small," said Daniel.

"And the rest of the world would be suddenly curious how the U.S. could suddenly develop such an advanced piece of technology, you might as well do full disclosure of the Stargate," pointed Harry out. "As that cannon hardly looks like something Earth or the US military would build…too pretty."

"So, at this point, one ion cannon is likely to cause more harm than good," continued Sam.

"How many do we need to set up a proper protective net around the entire planet?" asked Hammond curiously. Sam answered by pressing the remote and more red dots appeared around the image of Earth…in the end, a grand total of thirty-eight cannons and that didn't include back-ups.

"Couldn't hurt to ask, Sir," said Jack with a grin.

"Sir, I feel obligated at this point to mention the fact that Narim is opposed to this exchange. He feels that Omac's warning is directly related," opinioned Sam.

"You believe the Tollan Council has ulterior motive that do not represent our best interests?" said General Hammond.

"Something's going on," said Jack.

"I agree," said Harry, "this sudden shift of Tollan policy is suspicious. As evidenced by Narim, if the Tollan public were to ever hear of this, the Curia would be facing a sudden, very unruly populace."

"What you're sensing as trouble could be simple political wrangling," stated Hammond.

"Perhaps," conceded Harry.

"Or we … could be walking into a minefield. Anyway, I'm ordering you proceed with the negotiation, Colonel. But…"

"If you were going to recommend that I remain suspicious and skeptical…" said Jack with eyebrows arched.

"…I wouldn't waste my time," smiled Hammond.

Jack sighed and with an incredibly weary look at the General said, "Thank you, Sir. These little chats of ours always bring me GREAT joy … and serve to … ease my mind."

Tollana, Government Complex

Harry and the rest of SG1 were met at the Stargate by a team of four Tollan security officers equipped much the same as Travell's bodyguards at the funeral. They had been barely escorted fifty meters when a grim looking Narim intercepted them.

"Greetings," he said to the team, and turned to the security guards, "Chancellor Travelle has asked that I personally escort them the rest of the way." The guards frowned initially at this, but seemed to accept it and walked away to go about their regular duties.

"That true?" asked Harry, though he sensed the lie a mile away.

"No. I had heard you had arrived back on Tollana to meet with Chancellor Travelle again." They followed Narim and Jack spoke.

"Yeah…uh, we're going to ask for a whole whack of space guns," said Jack with a happy grin.

"This is much worse than I thought," said Narim looked dead serious.

"Narim, we understand why you're concerned, but those ion cannons could save Earth one day," said Sam with a slight pleading tone in her voice.

With a sarcastic grin Daniel said, "You're just going to have to trust that we won't blow each other up with them."

"And if we do," said Jack with a grin, "we won't blame you, promise!"

"I don't think that's what Narim means," said Harry with a frown.

"You are perceptive as always Ambassador," said Narim with a nod. "Let me explain. Every Tollan has an implant that monitors his or her health." He placed a gray half-circular device on his wrist and it beeped happily and started displaying Tollan characters. "See? This is my current health data."

"I'm assuming you're OK?" asked Sam.

"Yes, perfect health. However, I am overseer of Omoc's personal property including this device, which contains his health records. After our last conversation, I decided to do some checking. As you know, Omac died of a heart attack…"

"Narim…where are you going with this?" said Jack in a suffering tone.

"Despite the fact that Omoc looked like he was under great stress, he, too, was in perfect health."

"Well, people sometimes die of heart attacks … without warning," stated Sam.

"Our implants are linked to a central system. If anything goes wrong, health officers are dispatched immediately. Now, normally, maximum response time is under 5 minutes … the night of Omoc's death, it took them over 10 minutes." Harry frowned inwardly at that…add another worrying thing to the list under 'Things that don't make sense.' Tollan medical officers were drilled tirelessly in rapid response to medical emergencies…especially when it involved government officials. He knew this government complex had its own small hospital for crying out loud…ten minutes was an eternity…a suspicious eternity.

"What are you saying?" asked Sam intently.

"He is saying that he believes Omoc has been murdered," said Harry, his lips thinning. Narim only nodded, looking gratefully at Harry for saying it for him.

Harry, Sam and Teal'C had been invited by Narim to accompany them to his house, while Jack and Daniel were escorted to another negotiation session with Travelle. Narim's house was in fact part of a multiplex apartment building. And if the size was any indication of Narim's status in Tollan society, then he was very well off indeed. Though this was in fact, not the case. Tollan society rewarded accomplishment and skill and while it was a free and just there were what was called 'super-citizens', those with superior talent and/or knowledge were elevated to positions of authority in the Tollan government. The Tollan Curia was in fact a collection of the oldest super-citizens still living.

Narim, being Omoc's apprentice (who was himself a super-citizen), was afforded that same status by the relationship of master and student. If Narim later acquitted himself well enough, he would retain his 'super-citizen' status in his own right.

They entered his rather opulent abode and they were immediately greeted by a very familiar voice.

"Greeting, Narim. Welcome home," said the perfectly replicated voice of Sam from around them, "Atmospheric control is active. Shall I prepare a mid day meal for you and your guests?" Harry allowed a grin to show on his face and his eyes twinkled in mirth; Narim had chosen his computer's voice much as he had his ship's AI's voice modeled on Apollonia…clearly there were unrequited feelings between Sam and Narim.

Narim for his own part looked slightly embarrassed and a wry grin formed on his face. Sam's initial reaction was confusion, which turned to a grin as she shared a look with Teal'C, who merely cocked his head.

"No, thank you."

"Narim…" said Sam with an arched eyebrow.

"Yes, Samantha?"

"…is that my voice?"

"I'm sorry. I … was hoping you didn't notice," said Narim grinning rather self-deprecatingly.

"Colonel O'Neill asked us to find proof of Omoc's murder. Should we not begin?" said Teal'C stoically.

"I really do not know where to start. The fact is there hasn't been a murder among the Tollan for as long as I can remember," said Narim with a rather helpless shrug.

"Means, Motive and Opportunity," said Harry in an obvious tone.

"Right," said Sam, "good show that, but we don't really need the Means or the Opportunity of the Murder, we need to find out the motive."

"Then why would the Curia kill one of its own to ensure that a technology exchange would take place between Tollan and Earth?" supposed Harry.

"They need the Trinium that desperately," said Sam with a shrug. "Narim, is Tollana really that short on Trinium?"

"We are approaching a shortage level," confirmed Narim with a nod, "but I think if we need to deduce a motive from the Curia, we need to look at their session records, which is made public as a rule of law." He walked over to a computer terminal mounted in the wall and pressed the characters in the screen in a sequence and soon enough what looked to Harry to be minutes of Curia meetings started to scroll down.

"Can you translate it for us?" asked Sam. Narim nodded and with a few touches of the screen the more familiar Terran characters appeared; allowing them to read it.

"That is too much information," said Harry after a few moments of speed-reading, "We need to do a keyword search for a specific topic."

"What do you want to search for?"

"Ion Cannons," said Sam after a moment's thought.

"Okay, search topic Ion Cannons last 6 months," said Narim, inputting the parameters of the search. This thankfully did limit the amount of information considerably, but it was still a lot to go through. After ten minutes of reading, whereby Narim and Sam had moved over to a couch where another computer terminal was to divide the information between them so they could cover more ground in less time.

At this point, Daniel and Jack turned up, having successfully followed Narim's rather complex instructions on getting to the multiplex apartments.

"What'cha reading there guys?" asked Jack.

"Tollan Curia records," answered Teal'C, while Harry remained focused on the screen.

"Don't wreck it for me," said Jack sarcastically.

"What did Travelle say?" asked Sam.

"We got the guns."

"That can't be true!" said Narim in astonishment. A feeling that Harry mirrored.

"All of them?" said Sam.

"Over time as we deliver the Trinium," said Jack.

"I've got something!" announced Harry, tapping the screen in front of him to pause it. "Two months ago there was an unscheduled test of Ion Cannons. And Omoc filed an official protest."

"Yes. I remember it well," said Narim with a frown of thought. "We were supposed to have an evening meal together. Omoc was late. He was VERY angry when he arrived. He spent the entire time ranting about the unfairness of random testing on the Tollan people."

"I don't understand … why is this important?" asked Daniel, looking confused.

"We're looking for any motive the Curia may have had in…murdering Omoc," said Harry, scratching his chin contemplatively.

"This can't be!" said Narim, looking astounded and horrified as he stared at the screen.

"What?" said Jack in alarm.

"According to this record, the Curia meeting adjourned in the late afternoon. Omoc came here straight from the meeting, I'm sure it was well into the evening."

"So?" said Sam, not understanding the problem.

"That means there are at least 2 hours of notations missing from these records," said Narim, sounding outraged.

"A slight omission?" said Jack shrewdly.

"That's not possible," said Narim shaking his head.

"Narim, if the Curia could commit murder, they can certainly erase a couple of hours from the public record," said Sam in exasperation.

"You don't understand our laws! For the highest members of our government to deceive the people … as strange as it may sound, it's an even more heinous crime than murder, it's …" he paused, "it's unthinkable. At the time, I thought it was strange that Omoc would be so upset over an Ion Cannon test."

"If the Curia wanted to cover up details of this incident … why leave Omac's protests on record?" asked Daniel.

"Because an official protest of Tollan policy is filed with every level of every branch of the government. It would be impossible to erase it without a conspiracy of massive proportions reaching far outside the Curia," explained Narim.

"Therefore we need to know what happened in those two missing hours," stated Harry.

In the end, the team came up with a two-fold strategy of determining the truth. Sam would go back to Earth to accompany the first shipment of Trinium, whereby she would introduce a barely detectable radioactive isotope to the shipment. This would allow the team to discover what the Trinium was actually being used for. The other plan, which would run concurrently, was to somehow infiltrate Travelle's office and see if any incriminating evidence could be found in her computer. Of course, Narim's reaction to hearing of this plan was decidedly not positive.

"Do you realize what you've done by involving me in this? Just KNOWING what you've done …" said Narim angrily.

"Hey! You involved yourself in this when you sent us that warning," snapped Jack in response.

"Warning you that your world is in danger is not the same as committing treason against my own government!"

"If your leaders are involved in something and they committed murder to cover it up, what you're doing is NOT treason!" said Daniel strongly.

"What I am doing is _nothing_!" said Narim angrily, though it appeared he was directing it all towards himself.

"Then help us Narim," said Harry intently. "We need to somehow get into Travelle's office."

Narim heaved a great sigh and rubbed his hands through his hair. The man looked as if he was looking deep within himself to find the right thing to do. The team allowed him his space and didn't press him further. Eventually he met Harry's eyes.

"There is one chance. Only the highest-ranking members of the Curia would have access codes to the building where Travelle's office is located. Omoc was among them."

"And you have his personal effects?" said Sam.

"His code would be in the data device. You just have to reactivate it," explained Narim.

"OK," said Jack with a lop sided grin, taking command, "Daniel, Carter, Ambassador, go with Narim. Check out Travelle's office and see what you come up with. Teal'C and I'll track the Trinium." He turned to the Tollan. "Um, that's the thing that lets you go through walls, right?" He pointed to the gray gauntlet that covered Narim's forearm with the Phase Shift Device on it.

"Yes," said Narim with a confused frown, wondering where Jack was going with this.

"Gotta couple extra laying around?"

"That would be a severe violation of…" but Narim was interrupted.

"Good," said Jack as if Narim had said nothing, "How about weapons?"

"Colonel O'Neill…" said Narim looking disapproving of being strong-armed.

"Just incase," said Jack with a disarming grin.

"You know our security sensors disable …"

Teal'C interrupted his objection this time, "The weapons of your security forces remain unaffected."

**Government Complex, Chancellor's Office.**

They had to wait for a few hours before they could be sure Travelle was out of her office. Narim, Daniel, Sam and Harry stood in the darkened corridor just outside the locked door. In their infiltration of the building Harry had manipulated the minds of those who saw by projecting his Aura of Disinterest at a much higher level than normal, so it would cover the others as well. Any security officer or government worker who saw them as they walked though the building simply didn't pay enough attention to see the highly suspicious group of four people moving towards the executive floors of the building.

Narim stood at the numerical security keypad that stood on an artfully designed little podium next to the opaque glass doors of Travelle's office. He hesitated before entering the keycode he had obtained from Omoc's data device. And looked grimly at the others.

"If this doesn't work … security will be here in seconds."

"We've got your back if we are discovered," said Harry with a grin. In the course of the past few days, Harry's estimation of Narim had increased in leaps and bounds as the man showed his colors finally. Omoc's strict tutelage had seriously hampered him it seemed, and now that he was on his own the true man was finally coming out of that Tollan superiority complex.

Narim nodded and typed in the code. The pedestal flared green and everyone heaved a sigh of relief as the double doors to the office opened automatically.

"Way to go, Omoc!" said Daniel, looking impressed at the foresight the deceased Tollan had.

The four infiltrators closed the door behind them and rushed to the main desk in the minimalist, yet well appointed office. Narim sat down at the desk and a semi-circular transparent screen rose up impressively from the desk and a touchpad keyboard. Harry stood behind the Tollan and began reading the data files that Narim brought up. Sam and Daniel stood on the other side of the desk, anxiously awaiting their response.

Narim immediately referenced the missing two hours of the Tollan Curia.

"Here! This is a private communication sent to our chief of science and technology just after the meeting," said Narim reading it eagerly. Harry stared at the Tollan characters and his eyes widened at what he was reading.

"There was no random Ion Cannon test," said Harry grimly.

"It says a Goa'uld ship entered orbit, and that the Ion cannons fired in defense…" said Narim in astonishment.

"Ineffectively," said Harry closing his eyes. The day had finally come when the Tollans would rue their arrogance.

"What?" said Sam startled.

"I don't see how that could be! Our ion cannons have always been successful against Goa'uld mother ships!" said Narim.

"Maybe this Goa'uld has developed shields to defend against them," opinioned Sam.

"That would be catastrophic! We have no other weapons capable of defending Tollana on a planetary scale!" said Narim.

"It also says that despite the attack the Goa'uld left peacefully," said Harry.

"Yeah, right!" said Daniel sarcastically.

"Why would a Goa'uld mothership impervious to your Ion cannons just leave?" asked Sam in confusion.

"There must be more," insisted Narim and began typing, but sighed in frustration, "No other records of communications mentions a Goa'uld ship."

"It must have been discussed _off_ the record after that," said Daniel contemplatively.

"Well, we know the ion cannons are useless if they won't defend against a Goa'uld mother ships anymore," said Sam, looking disappointed.

"Which explains why Travelle was willing to give us as many as we wanted," said Daniel dryly.

"Were there any scans done of the Goa'uld ship?" asked Harry intently. Narim's fingers danced on the keyboard as he searched.

"Why would you want to see that?" asked Daniel.

"If I can see a sensor profile of the shields I can begin to deduce how it was constructed and in turn find a weakness in them," said Harry.

"There were scans done," confirmed Narim, "but according to this they've been archived and compartmentalized. They aren't in this computer." Harry cursed in Alteran angrily.

"Let's see if we can find out what the trinium's being used for," suggested Sam. Narim nodded and his fingers began to dance again, data and files flashed across the screen at impressive speed until Harry saw something.

"Stop! There…" he pointed to the file directory. Narim accessed it and it expanded to show a brief video file of what looked to be a multi megaton explosion.

"Wow," said Sam with wide eyes.

"It's a weapon of mass destruction," said Narim grimly. The video file faded out to show a virtual diagram of a sophisticated warhead that's design just screamed 'Tollan' to his mind; the rounded organic shape, the crystals, the metallurgy, everything.

"OK, where does the Trinium come in?" asked Daniel wearily.

"Trinium is required to house the device that generates our phase shift technology," explained Narim.

"Are you saying this bomb is being made so that it can go through anything?" surmised Daniel.

"Theoretically, Yes. Of course, that must be it. This weapon is intended to replace the ion cannon in defense of our planet," said Narim.

"A Goa'uld would never just drop by and leave, allowing you to have a look at his new shield technology and possibly give your people time to develop a means to penetrate it, Narim," said Harry with a disappointed sigh at the man's naivety.

"What else could …"

But Narim was interrupted as the doors to Travelle's office opened abruptly and the woman herself came striding in briskly with six security officers in tow, all with their Tollan disruptors raised and trained on each of them. Sam and Daniel raised their own Disruptors in a flash, but Travelle spoke before anyone could even think to pull a trigger.

"Please. Lower your weapons, the building's full of security," said Travelle imperiously. The security officers had them obviously outnumbered so Sam and Daniel reluctantly relinquished the weapons. The officers ushered Harry and Narim away from the computer into the center of the room and backed off to get a clear line of fire. "What do you think you're doing, Narim?"

"What do you think _you_ are doing … Chancellor?" said Narim with disgust. Instead of answering Travelle looked up to her desk. A tall handsome looking man had appeared there from a concealed entrance behind the desk. He had light brown skin with long black hair tied into a ponytail and a classically handsome face. He wore elegant brown robes with embroidered designs that looked straight out of the early Egyptian dynasties. The first clue as to the man's less than good nature was the distinctive golden glint of a Goa'uld Ribbon device on his right hand, the second was the palpable sense of malevolence and glee that radiated from the man like a foul color of light (at least to Harry's perception), the third was the overly bright eyes of the man…showing the clear presence of a symbiote within the man. Harry looked at the designs on the robes closely and frowned in confusion…how could this be?

"She is doing what she must, to preserve your world," spoke the Goa'uld in the characteristic distorted voice. Harry saw Travelle look down in genuine shame. Sam and Daniel looked appalled at what was happening. Everything was almost clear now.

"Thoth," stated Harry with clear displeasure written on his face.

"Ah, so you know of me, Ambassador," said the Goa'uld in a pleased voice.

"I know enough to know that there is no way that you are here at the behest of the System Lords," said Harry, his face then split into an amused grin, "considering that they banished your snakey little ass out of Goa'uld space for hoarding new technologies that you discovered and/or developed. Oh, and let's not forget that little attempt you made on Ra's life at the height of his power, tsk, tsk." Thoth's eyes flashed in anger at the reminder of his little failure at grabbing the title of Supreme System Lord from his former Master Ra. Harry knew that Thoth fancied himself many things, but he was first and foremost a scientist and linguist (he developed the written Goa'uld language), but his ego, like those of all Goa'uld, was too big for his own abilities. His tactical and military skills were marginal at best, but he was cunning, sneaky and very clever. The Tok'ra would have loved to be able to get their hands on him.

Narim turned to Travelle in anger at this point and said, "_How_ could you _do_ this?"

"I have done nothing alone, Narim. The Curia is acting in the interest of Tollana," said Travelle earnestly.

"You murdered Omoc!" said Narim in disgust.

"Not to mention betraying every single allegiance you have ever made!" said Harry, looking at Travelle with disdain. The Curia had just spat in the face of the Asgard, Tok'ra, Earth, and the Nox by dealing with the Goa'uld.

"Had we not done what we did, there would be _no_ Tollana to speak of!" retorted Travelle.

"And there won't be if you do not fulfill your promise, Chancellor," said Thoth with a smirk.

"Rest assured, we will deliver as promised," said Travelle confidently.

"You and the Curia are NOT in power to make such deals on behalf of the Tollan people! We would rather fight and DIE … than trade our technology to the Goa'uld!" said Narim, now looking beyond incensed.

"I wonder … would you be so _quick_ to make that decision if you were in my place," said Travelle with a sneer.

It was at this point that Harry decided that he had had enough of playing possum. He met Sam's eyes and blinked three times. She nodded. Sam abruptly grabbed Daniel and rushed forward to distract Thoth…meanwhile, Harry had grabbed Narim and pressed the phaseshift gauntlet, activating it and faster than the security officers could react ran through the nearest wall in a blur of movement.

8888888888888888888888

Harry and Narim appeared abruptly in a rather secluded corner of the quadrangle, which was shielded from view by a grouping of large plants and shrubbery; a slight displacement of air heralded their arrival.

"What was that?" asked Narim with groan, shuddering at the feelings of apparition.

"No time to explain, and I doubt even you would truly understand the physics behind it," said Harry softly, looking around. He helped Narim forward and they managed to leave the quadrangle unseen; it helped that Harry had his Aura on full power of course. He cast his mind's eye about looking for Jack and Teal'C and managed to intercept them, as they themselves were also stealthily moving about, clearly trying to avoid security officers. They met under the stilted wing of one of the government buildings, thanks to a staircase leading from a higher level and the position of the sun, it was almost cast in complete shadow.

"Daniel Jackson and Major Carter?" asked Teal'C looking concerned at only seeing two of them.

"We were caught by Travelle and the Goa'uld the Curia have ventured into a bargain with," said Narim grimly. "I managed to escape with the Ambassador's help. But the entire security force of Tollana must be looking for me … and you for that matter."

"Uh … back up to that Goa'uld bargain part," said Jack expectantly.

"The Tollan Curia made a deal with a Goa'uld. His name is Thoth."

Jack turned to Harry with raised eyebrows.

"Thoth is a banished Goa'uld, a scientist in as much a Goa'uld can be one. The Tok'ra hasn't heard from him since he was cast out of Goa'uld space in an Al'kesh and a few loyal Jaffa over twenty years ago," explained Harry.

"And now he's back, making a powerplay," said Jack.

"Possibly," conceded Harry, "though I doubt it. Think of Thoth as an…oh…an egghead if you will, very brilliant but militarily stupid, at least in comparison to the other Goa'uld out there."

"Somebody bigger is pulling his strings," concluded Jack and turned back to Narim. "So what kind of deal did the Curia make?"

"This Goa'uld's mothership has a new kind of shield this is impervious to our Ion Cannons. For the first time, Tollana is vulnerable to attack," said Narim grimly.

"There hasn't _been_ an attack," snapped Jack.

"No, to prevent our destruction, the Curia has agreed to build weapons for the Goa'uld," said Narim in disgust.

"We have seen these weapons. There are a great many," said Teal'C stoically.

"What exactly can they do?"

"They are explosives of great power that utilize the Tollan phase-shift technology. They will be able to pass through any solid matter prior to detonation."

"Like…an iris?" asked Jack warily.

"As you've witnessed before, I've used our technology to walk right through the barrier that protects your planet's Stargate," said Narim earnestly.

"We must not allow Thoth to obtain possession of these weapons," said Teal'C.

"Then we must destroy them," said Harry simply.

"How?" asked Narim. Harry pointed into the distance at the far side of the Government complex…where a large Ion Cannon was mounted on a small building. Narim sighed and looked rather forlornly at the Cannon. "Travelle's right … it's not so easy when the fate of your planet is in your own hands."

"Narim …," said Jack with a frown.

"Look, The Goa'uld will attack Tollana if the delivery is not made … You are _asking_ me … to destroy my own world!"

"I am asking you not to destroy Earth and God knows how many other planets to save your own ass! I'm asking you to do the right thing, and you know it!" said Jack angrily.

"Narim," said Harry and placed a hand on the man's shoulder, "I said we would watch your back, and I meant it. The instant Major Carter and Dr Jackson are free and we return to Earth, I will get my ship and return to Tollana as fast as possible. I can't make any guarantees however."

Narim sighed explosively and looks towards the Ion Cannon in the distance.

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"That must've hurt," said Harry wryly, as Narim moved a Healing Device over his left wrist…where his Tollan Health Implant had been.

"I wouldn't put it above Travelle using it to track my location," said Narim darkly, putting the device away and watching Jack and Teal'C in the distance sneaking off towards the weapons depot. "We must hurry." Harry nodded and they also moved away from their former hiding place. Moving about and mingling with the flow of pedestrian traffic in the complex they headed towards the Ion Cannon that had a sightline on the weapons depot. When they reached the small building and stopped next to the door leading inside Harry asked, "How many?"

"Three," responded Narim.

"Wait here," ordered Harry and casually went inside. The control room for the Ion Cannon above was, like all things Tollan, spacious, shiny and pretty. Wide banks of control panels lined the room and large one-way windows allowed the operators a nice view of the grounds outside and the capital city of Tollana beyond. The technicians inside were dutifully working on the computers, even as it was clear to Harry that their sensors to space had been disabled…clearly indicating that the Curia didn't want word to get out that Goa'uld motherships were most likely above them waiting to rain death and destruction, unless this weapons deal went forward.

"Have a nap, guys," said Harry, gesturing with a sweep of his hand. All three techs let out deep sighs and slumped in their chairs…fast asleep. "Narim…"

The man in question came in and closed the door behind him. He was startled at first at the sleeping technicians, but evidently reigned in his own curiosity. He pushed away one of the technicians who slumped to the floor and took his place, his hands immediately dancing over the controls.

"Scanning the weapons depot," announced Narim. "Good…it seems our diversion was successful, security is swarming the place in a great concentration….there…I believe Colonel O'Neill and Teal'C has just been apprehended…four lifesigns are on their way towards Travelle's office."

"Can you get passive sensors to space on-line?" asked Harry urgently. Narim worked a few moments and gestured to a console to his right for Harry to use. Harry worked quickly and soon a hologram appeared in front of him showing a diagram of the Tollan planet.

"Eight!" said Narim in shock. "Eight Goa'uld motherships are orbit."

"Whoever Thoth is working for clearly doesn't want anything to go wrong," said Harry grimly, he typed in a few more commands and the screen was replaced with scrolling passive sensor data on the Goa'uld ships above. Harry was…astounded, the more and more he saw…it was uncanny, and impossible.

"What is it?" demanded Narim, seeing Harry expression.

"These shield modulations…if I didn't know how good Tollan sensors were I would think these readings were false…but it's as clear as day, the modulations are based on Ancient principles," said Harry aghast.

"How is that possible?"

"I don't know," said Harry, struggling to come to terms with it "…somehow, a Goa'uld out there has discovered an Ancient ship or basic database…and basing new technologies off it." Harry slammed his fist in anger on the console and started cursing in Alteran. Had Oma been there, she would probably have been washing his mouth out with soap. "Destroy the weapons."

Narim didn't hesitate, he inputted the commands and they heard the Cannon above moving on it's actuators, aiming itself and then a massive blast of crackling blue energy shot out and with a massive roar and rattling of the window panes the weapons depot exploded in a rapidly expanding shockwave of debris and fire.

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It was merely the prelude to the coming destruction. Orange lines of energy began to rain down onto the planet from the orbiting Ha'taks. Tollans were running everywhere to find some measure of safety in shelters and perhaps even to ships in the hope to escape into Hyperspace; but that was a futile gesture as the blockade of Goa'uld ships covered every exit vector from the planet. Six people ran towards the Tollan Stargate. However, one of them began to slow down, causing the rest to stop.

"You must hurry straight to the Stargate," said a heavily breathing Narim.

"Aren't you coming with us?" asked Sam.

"My actions have forced my people in a battle we may very well loose. The least I could do is stay and fight with them."

"Take this," said Harry, handing Narim an Asgard Jewel Device. "It'll allow me to find you and communicate. My ship can only handle a maximum of four thousand evacuees, so gather as many people as you can!" shouted Harry above the roar of weapons fire and explosions.

Narim nodded and gestured for them to go. Harry, Daniel, Teal'C and Jack ran towards the Stargate. Harry made a twirling gesture with his hand towards it and a subspace path immediately established itself and settled into stability. Jack pressed his GDO code into the device on his wrist and it blinked green. Sam sprinted to rejoin them and they all ran through the open event horizon.

The instant they were back in the SGC, Harry turned to Jack. "Tell Hammond what happened. I'm going to Tollana by ship." Before they could even say a word, Harry was enveloped by white light and vanished.

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**Eight hours later…in orbit above Tollana**

The _Achilles_ burst out of Hyperspace over the Northern pole of Tollana. Multiple launcher tubes that dotted the circumference of the great ship wasted no time in flinging out sixteen missiles at once. Small hyperfast sublight engines powered the missiles, that due to their small relative mass could make the things go at half the speed of light. Harry specifically designed their warheads for their job…removing Death Gliders from space like a massive flyswatter.

The Death Gliders that were going to and fro the blockading halo of Ha'taks and the planet surface were completely caught off guard as sixteen relatively small artificial suns came into existence briefly and with a massive flash in all light spectra, blinded the pilots who only a few nanoseconds later were obliterated into their constituent atoms.

The _Achilles_ swooped on the nearest Ha'tak with multiple salvos from the emitter ring. Yellow solid beams of energy lanced out and crashed into the shield of the mothership.

On the bridge of the _Achilles_ sitting in the Control Chair, Harry sat contemplating the results of the strike. Whereas before, he could have obliterated the Ha'tak…now he had only reduced its shield strength by thirty percent. Clearly the Alteran inspired shields were making a difference.

But Harry did not name his ship _Achilles_ for his nostalgic sense of history. The Ha'tak he had attacked fired a volley in return…with a thought the _Achilles_ went into a fast roll, dodging most of the orange energy weapons and only catching some on his forward shields…which weakened by eight percent. Harry fired another salvo of beams, concentrating them on the bridge of the Ha'tak and gave a mental order to his AI. The result was seen a moment later as a flash of light appeared next to Harry's control chair and a thoroughly disheveled and dirty Narim materialized.

"Hi there, Narim," said Harry grimly, and with a thought triaxelated his phased particle beams into a different spectrum and launched another salvo of beams which finally managed to penetrate the shield of the Ha'tak and sliced off the top third of the pyramid ship…which a moment later exploded.

"Harry," nodded Narim, looking around at the virtual bridge in awe. The _Achilles_ shuddered as three Ha'tak came into range and started to fling orange plasma energy into the shields.

"Your people are being beamed aboard as we speak," said Harry, and this time eighteen hypermissiles speared forth. Their warheads were laced with weapons grade naquadah and potassium (essentially the weapons that were currently carried by the F-302s)…the results were marginal. Six missiles each bracketed one of the three Ha'taks and massive orbs of white light appeared against the shields of the motherships, with visible shockwaves traveling in all directions…the shields on the Ha'taks were reduced by 35 percent.

"Back to the drawing board on those things," said Harry unhappily.

"How far are we with the evacuation?" said Narim anxiously.

"Halfway done." Yellow beams lanced out at the Ha'tak's now in pursuit of the _Achilles_ as it surged further away from the gravity well of the planet. "Enough of this," snarled Harry and focused all weapon power into a single energy lance and narrowed the area it would hit by fifty percent. A beam shot out and hit the bridge area of the Ha'tak, but Harry focused and kept the energy flow constant. It looked as if someone had drawn a line from the _Achilles_ towards the pursuing Ha'tak…and finally the shield generators on the Goa'uld ship had to yield to high-energy physics and exploded. A snap launch of a hypermissile obliterated it. For the next twenty minutes Harry played a constant game of hit-and-run tactics…almost playing sheepdog to the group of Ha'tak. This was possible due to the high level of speed and maneuverability of the _Achilles_. Darting in, making slashing runs against the Goa'uld, all the while beaming up more people. Finally…

"OK, I've got four thousand one hundred people squeezed on board," announced Harry. "My shield strength is at forty percent…it would be risky to stay…"

But he was cut off when Narim said angrily, "GO! Just go!"

Harry winced and nodded. Knowing that the man next to him had for the second time in five years witnessed his world being destroyed; the first, due to their own mistake in sharing technology with a neighboring planet and now to the Goa'uld. The _Achilles_ made a massive sweeping turn and jumped into Hyperspace.

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H_owz at folks? Things are definitely hotting up._


	22. Chapter 22

_**Chapter 22 – The Future's Gift**_

P3X-116

The Stargate lit up and began to slowly build up energy. The inner ring spinning and locking in co-ordinates for an incoming subspace path. The Gate itself was situated in a large open plain, which in turn was surrounded by a large forest. The sky was blue and slight wisps of white cloud could be seen passing high in the upper atmosphere of the planet. The sun was up and shined merrily down on the scene.

However, the scene around the Stargate could hardly be called 'merry' at all.

A column of twelve Jaffa stood at attention around the gate.

"Jaffa Kree!"

The column of Jaffa brought their Staff weapons to bear upon the mouth of the Stargate. A horn call resounded from the forest. Finally, the Gate activated and after the unstable energy had settled in the mouth of the Stargate into a vertical shimmering pool a few seconds passed and…nothing happened. This confused the Jaffa Commander as he knew enough to know that a Gate needed something passing through it to keep it open this long; his wrist communicator beeped and a few words were exchanged with the First Prime…

"Tau'ri…!" began the Commander but was cut off when six heavy discus shaped objects came hurtling through the event horizon. The Jaffa had barely a few moments to comprehend the danger when the six black objects, which had come to a stop, shot out spherical shapes directly upward with 'clicking' sounds and when they were at roughly 1.7 meters…promptly exploded with a massive concussive shockwave that picked up the nearest Jaffa and flung them away, twisting like rag dolls. A few nanoseconds after the built in wave of shrapnel and nails followed and decimated the remaining Jaffa stationed around the gate.

Three seconds later and the dust kicked up from the massive explosion had blotted the gate from the view of the Jaffa squadron waiting in the tree line of the woods. Their hearts filled with anger and fear at seeing their fellows so casually swatted aside.

Within the cloud of dust, something came through the Stargate that would do more of the same. The first part of it to appear from the event horizon was a coupled cylindrical arrangement of six matt black barrels connected together with a disc. More of it came through and it showed that the barrels were quite long, easily just under two thirds of a meter; attached to these was a small armored vehicle with four ruggedized heavy-duty tires. If anyone from Earth had seen it, they would've thought that a small one-man Caterpillar Earth Mover had married a M1A2 Abrams Main Battle tank and produced these as offspring. Those at Stargate Command when showed the plans for the thing came up with a simple nickname for the armored vehicle…CAT.

It was roughly 1.8 meters in width, 1.7 in height, 4 in length and sloped thick Chobham armor that was colored with digital green patterns to diffuse its visual signature to the venerable Eyeball Mark 1. It trundled down the stairs in front of the Gate and turned on its axis with its independently articulated wheels to face the nearby forest.

The main weapon of the CAT was the M134 Minigun, which fired the 7.62mm NATO armor-piercing projectile. It could fire between four thousand and six thousand rounds per minute. The weight of the gun itself was only 18 kilograms, but the weight of the amounts of ammunition required and recoil (it pushed back with a force of 120 kilograms) produced by the gun when fired made it totally impractical for a person to carry.

Its main role was to provide Infantry Support. The fighting men and women that made up the SG teams were almost all former Special Forces, who had to go through even more training to get them ready for off world missions, the standard demanded of them was high. Unfortunately, that meant the amount of people qualified to fight were numerically small. And more often than liked, found themselves outnumbered in any combat situation with the Goa'uld. The CAT would be the equalizer.

Behind the CAT, four SG teams rushed out of the Stargate and took up positions behind the cover of armored vehicle. The man in nominal command was Major Mansfield, who was crouched directly behind the rumbling CAT. He pushed a button next to the rear hatch of the vehicle and spoke into the shielded speaker situated there, "What do you see, sir?"

"Scans show a large concentration of Jaffa in the woods where my barrel is pointed," replied the driver of the CAT.

"How many?"

"Squadron strength," came the answer.

"Damn," cussed Major Mansfield. "Have you managed to contact SG1, sir?"

"Yes, they know we are here, and are en route back to the gate," said the driver. "Be advised, the smoke and dust is clearing and we will soon be visible to the Jaffa, I'm cutting my radio signal to the SGC." A moment later the subspace path collapsed with a 'whooshing' sound.

Mansfield turned to his men. "Ready!" he hissed under his breath, and hefted his PR7 and multiple charging 'pring' sounds was heard from the weapons of the sixteen soldiers. They had organized themselves into four, four man columns behind the CAT. Those on the left and right flanks hefted their PR7s and aimed towards the forest. "Steady, wait for it…" A slight breeze carried across and finally exposed the CAT. A horncall was heard and orange staff blasts came lancing out of the trees.

But Earth had finally made use of some of the technologies and knowledge gained from the captured Ha'tak of Chronus. This being the first entirely Terran built shield system…codenamed Firestorm. It was a system that was also being thought of mounted on the F302s as well. Though it's drawbacks were that the shields were nowhere as effective as those mounted on motherships and so on, it would provide extra survivability for any unit equipped with it. The Staff weapon fire would need to be almost constantly maintained for several minutes before the Firestorm shields wore off; which was more than enough time for it to utterly annihilate any attacker…when the shields finally would give out, the Chobham armor would hopefully further keep Staff fire at bay until the driver could either retreat or blow them away.

Hence, the staff weapon blasts from the Jaffa coming from the treeline were absorbed and deflected by a shield that flared into the red of the visible spectrum.

The CAT wasted no time in responding. It's Minigun barrel turned to the left and started rotating with an electrical whine, zero point seven seconds later, an ear numbing 'braaaaap' sound erupted and Major Mansfield was quite glad for the earplugs that they had put in earlier. From the spinning barrels a two foot long tongue of flame shot out and he just barely saw the trees to the left erupt and splinter. The CAT's engine geared up and started to move forward at a walking pace. The soldiers kept up behind it and started to send streaming blue bolts of energy into the treeline as well.

Mansfield couldn't see the havoc that the CAT wrought in the treeline, but he could imagine. The short bursts of the weapon came in three second intervals and was immediately followed by cracking and splitting of wood…he could swear he even saw a tree felled by the sheer amount of rounds being pumped into the forest.

Finally the CAT had reached the treeline and Mansfield led his soldiers as they surged forward along its flanks and into the forest, spreading out into an assault formation.

The small rear hatch of the CAT opened and a fully geared up, chromesuited Harry swung himself out. His PR7 materialized in his hands and using the CAT as cover swept the treeline for any Jaffa that might have survived the assault, despite the fact that the sensors on the CAT indicated that there was no Jaffa remaining alive near his position. It was now up to Major Mansfield to sweep the forest and rendezvous with the stranded SG1; the mission they had been sent on was based on Tok'ra intelligence that a Goa'uld was setting up this planet as a new base or staging area…the fact that the Tok'ra had no clue as to who this Goa'uld was spoke for itself, hence the reason for a recon by SG1.

Clipping his weapon to his assault vest, Harry reached into the CAT and pulled out a brand new Tablet PC that was linked to the command systems of the CAT, and would allow him to keep a general sensor watch over the immediate operational area. He watched from a 'God's Eye' point of view as Mansfield and his teams advanced through the forest. He blinked at the tactical situation and activated his radio embedded in his assault vest.

"Sierra Golf Alpha Sierra Tango, this is Sierra Golf Omega, be advised, four leftover enemy troops have slipped way past your left flank and are circling around behind you, distance two hundred meters and closing, over," reported Harry.

"Roger that," came Mansfield's voice over the crackling radio. Harry watched as the dots that showed the SG troops suddenly stopped. The four lifesigns of the Jaffa continued to advance forward until there were sudden bursts of energy registered by the sensors…two of the enemy lifesigns winked out at once and a two minute firefight followed where it seemed the two Jaffa managed to cause a casualty among the SG force before both were killed.

"Damn," swore Harry with a frown. The assault continued in the forest, with Harry giving tactical updates on disposition and location of enemy Jaffa to Mansfield. Finally, after a running twenty-minute battle in the forest, the Jaffa squadron was out for the count. Harry saw four new lifesigns appear at the edge of the CATs sensor range and assumed those to be SG1. He sent Mansfield their location and his squad turned in formation to rendezvous. The computer of the CAT gave a shrill warning at this point.

"Shit!" cussed Harry, and thumbed his radio. "All Sierra Golf personnel, Sierra Golf Omega, we have multiple Gliders and an Alkesh on approach! Get your buts back to the Gate!" There was only a double click on the radio in acknowledgement as the sensors showed that they had started to run. Checking the Tablet PC one last time, he made note of the direction of the incoming Goa'uld craft and chucked it back into the CAT. Now Harry wished he had asked for a Stinger Anti-Air Missile Launcher to be packed into the CAT.

He closed the hatch of the CAT and gestured with his hand to it…it shimmered into disillusionment and was hidden. He ran into the treeline and crouched behind a tall tree, making sure to stay in the shadows. He heard the Goa'uld craft before he saw them. The sonic boom of something going way past the speed of sound and then the characteristic whine of Death Gliders as two of them swooped into view from overhead.

The slower, slick looking Goa'uld Al'kesh bomber roared past a few moments after that. They should have detected him crouching there, but he had willed a scattering field around him and a hundred meters beyond, that diffracted the energy from the scans preventing the sensors getting a return. But the Goa'uld knew that they were in the area, and the dead Jaffa around the Gate was a sure giveaway, not to mention the initial radio contact that had been established with SG1. So the Gliders and Al'kesh continued to circle around the Gate; like Fish Eagles waiting for its prey to surface, while Harry was sure another Jaffa Squadron was being mobilized from wherever this new Goa'uld base was.

Finally, the assault teams plus SG1 arrived.

"Hey everyone, how's things going?" asked Harry sarcastically.

"Ah, same old, same old," said a visibly rumpled and dirty Jack O'Neill.

"That bad, huh?" Jack shrugged.

"Ambassador Harry," nodded Teal'C, and Harry was surprised to see that he was carrying what looked like a man portable Goa'uld Staff Cannon, making the Jaffa look rather formidable and ominous; it was the perfect weapon to take care of their little air superiority problem. Harry exchanged nods with Sam and Daniel, and took note that all of SG1 looked rather the worse for wear.

"We can catch up later," said Harry intently, "Teal'C, how good are you with that thing?" The Jaffa merely raised an eyebrow as if saying _You need to ask?_. "Good, thought so." Harry opened his hands and with two small white flashes Asgard Jewel Devices appeared in each hand; these were different in that they were designed to be threaded through the fingers much like a Goa'uld Ribbon Device. "OK, Teal'C and I are going out there…I'll be shielding him while he takes care of our vultures, meanwhile, Major Mansfield…"

"Understood," nodded the Major, not needing further elaboration.

They waited until the Goa'uld craft had made another orbit so that their backs were to the treeline when they emerged. Harry and Teal'C surged out of the woods and onto the open plain, while Mansfield and SG1 ran along the tree line to get as close to the Stargate as possible before also surging out onto the plain.

Teal'C took his first shot with the Staff Cannon at the back of the Death Glider. The large bolt of energy slammed into the port wing of the Glider and blew it clean off, turning the normally aerodynamic glider into something as clumsy as a flying brick. The pilot was clearly seen trying to compensate, but it was useless as the craft fell out of the sky and crashed, exploding into a fiery maelstrom.

The Alkesh, however, did not need to turn it's nose around to shoot back. The belly turret rotated and pointed unerringly at Teal'C and Harry…and loosed two shots of orange energy at them. Harry raised his palms towards the incoming shots and just as he had done with Voldemort's killing curse…bent space in front of him. The shots twisted away awkwardly and exploded into a distant mountain.

Harry released his hold on space and it snapped back into its natural shape allowing Teal'C to take a shot at the belly turret. The pilot of the Al'kesh was clearly showing a fatal arrogance here, as he clearly thought that nothing man-portable could harm the formidable bomber and as such, had not raised his shields. The belly turret exploded with enough force to rock the bomber off course in mid-flight. It also struggled to regain control and wavered through the air.

Harry raised his left hand palm up and willed a basketball-sized sphere of crackling writhing blue electricity into existence. The remaining Glider had managed to turn around now, but before it could even begin a strafing run Harry made a throwing motion and the sphere shot forward as fast as a missile and impacted the nose of the Glider.

Tendrils of energy snaked around the Glider but nothing seemed to happen at first and abruptly all its flight systems failed, its energy gone and it turned from a powerful craft of war into nothing more than an object obeying the law of gravity and crashed into the forest…another fireball rising into the air.

Teal'C had, in the meantime, continued to pepper the ungainly Al'kesh with Cannon fire, trying to hit its engines. He had managed to disable one, but it had four to spare so it finished its turn and lined up, clearly intending to finish them off with energy bombs. Harry this time raised both palms towards the Al'kesh and two spheres of electrical energy appeared. They shot from his palms and slammed into the cockpit section of the bomber. Teal'C followed it up with a staff cannon shot that would've killed anyone in there anyway.

"Let's go!" came the shout over the radio from Mansfield and the assault force surged out of the tree line, sprinting towards the Gate. Daniel taking the duty of dialing the DHD.

Harry gestured for Teal'C to follow and ran back towards the invisible CAT…which promptly became visible at Harry's approach. "Grab a hold of this," showed Harry, gesturing to the feet and hand holds built into the flanks of the CAT. Teal'C obeyed seeing what Harry had in mind as the latter opened the hatch and climbed inside and fired up the engines.

The CAT was rather simple to control. On either side of the ergonomic driver's chair were two control sticks. The left governed the movement of the vehicle, while the right controlled the aim of the Minigun. There were no gaps in the armor of the CAT for the driver to look where he was going. Instead there were three large flat panel screens in front and to either side of the driver, that's feed came from internal visual sensors, giving the driver 180 degree forward visibility, and with the flip of a switch allowed 180 degree aft, as well.

The CAT surged into reverse, backing away from the tree line and made a quick turn and sped towards the Stargate at its max speed of fifty kilometers per hour. It was quite funny to see the astonished faces of Sam, Daniel and Jack, still standing at the DHD as the CAT bore down on them.

Mansfield, standing next to the now active Stargate, transmitted his GDO code and after a few moments, nodded to his men, who started to walk into the event horizon. Mansfield's face turned grim as he saw the killed member of his team being carried by another soldier in a fireman's carry pass through the Gate. SG1 walked through and finally Mansfield…giving Harry a clear run. He gunned the engines and the CAT slipped through the event horizon.

Harry stood in the Briefing Room a few hours later and watched as the CAT rose into the air with the specially designed crane that was pulling it through the now open roof of the embarkation room, and towards the Armor Lab on the eighteenth sub-level, where the CAT was originally designed and assembled.

A clean and medically fit SG1 came into the room and General Hammond walked in from his office, ready for the debriefing. Sam came over to Harry for a friendly hug.

"Good to see you again, it's been a while," said Sam

"Yeah well," said Harry with a shrug, "when you have to arrange the future of a decimated civilization it kinda takes a while. Narim sends his greetings to all of you."

"He's alive?" said Sam with a happy smile. Harry nodded.

"Let's get started," said Hammond, gesturing for everyone to take seats around the conference table. "Ambassador, in the interests of all our curiosity and concerns about the fate of the Tollan, I'm opening the floor to you first before the main part of the debriefing."

"Thank you, General," said Harry, his teeth worrying his lower lip as if considering his words. "As I was saying to Sam, Narim sends his greetings to all of you. And he also sends his profound thanks for helping to stop the Goa'uld weapons deal; it's clear that he didn't relish the idea that the Tollan people would go down in the history books as the ones who betrayed every freedom loving race in the Galaxy and beyond."

"Furthermore, the Tollan Remnant with Narim unanimously elected as its leader, has decided to go into hiding," said Harry.

"Why?" asked Daniel with a frown.

"Because I suggested it to them," said Harry.

"You believe they'll come under attack again if it's learned that some survived," said Teal'C with a raised eyebrow.

"Yes," nodded Harry gravely. "I came to realize this mystery Goa'uld behind Thoth targeted the Tollan not only because they didn't deliver the weapons as promised, but also because of the fact that they represented a threat…technologically speaking."

"What led you to this realization?" asked Hammond curiously.

"The bottom line is, this mystery Goa'uld has somehow gained access to Ancient technology and/or knowledge," reported Harry.

"What?" asked Sam in alarm.

"The new shields these Ha'taks were equipped with were still using your standard Goa'uld shields as a basis but with enhanced modulations and upgrades clearly based off of Ancient knowledge. As such, if the Tollan were ever to turn their full knowledge and effort into the fighting the Goa'uld…"

"It would seriously put a crimp in this mystery snake's plans," said Jack.

"Therefore, they have gone into hiding," concluded Harry. "But," he raised a finger, "some good did come from this. The Tollan Remnant is going to be turning their collective scientific might against the Goa'uld. The fruits of this I assure you will be enjoyed by all within the year and beyond."

"Very well," nodded Hammond, "I assume you won't be telling _us_ their location?"

"The Tollan were most insistent that their location remain secret, in the event that SG1 or anyone else fall into enemy hands," explained Harry. "As it is, they were very reluctant for me to report to you even the fact that any managed to escape."

"What if _you_ are captured?" asked Jack archly.

"Then a lot more than the Tollan would be compromised," said Harry with a raised eyebrow, "any Goa'uld that even managed that feat would find me a trifle difficult to hold for long." Jack looked dubious at this assertion but let it go.

"SG1 anything noteworthy on your trip?" asked Hammond.

"It was a bust, sir," reported Jack unhappily. "We were attempting to find the Base when that Jaffa squadron came out of nowhere and cut us off from the Gate. Clearly there is a Goa'uld presence but we couldn't lay eyes on any sort of permanent stronghold before we had to evade Jaffa patrols."

"What about the Jaffa, any idea on who they belonged to?"

"I only saw Jaffa from Chronos and Sokar," replied Teal'C.

"So this mystery Goa'uld is just snatching up the leftovers from any fallen System Lord," concluded Daniel.

"On an unrelated matter to the subject," said Sam, "how did we manage to field the CAT? I thought it was at least two months away from battlefield readiness."

"I appropriated the prototype," said Harry with a lopsided grin, "using Asgard fabrication tech on board the _Achilles_ I finished the missing parts, assembled it and beamed it down into the Gate room."

"Well," said Jack with a big grin rubbing his hands together eagerly, "looks like we've got a new toy to play with."

The next few days Harry was accosted by the scientists and engineers that had been working on the CAT; to explain how he had managed the final systems integration. They even wanted to take apart the thing again, but Jack nixed the idea immediately…'no eggheads would be tinkering with the thing when it could save lives out in the field'. Of course, this meant more work for Harry, as he had to document everything he had done to complete the CAT.

The CAT itself would be something that would never see mass production. Since half the technologies on it the US Military can't admit to having. The highly classified Chobham armor plating required for the CAT was surreptitiously slipped into the standard production orders for the M1A2 and would be classified as 'defective' in inspection and then instead of being melted down would be secreted away to the SGC for use. A similar process was used for every part of the CAT that could be produced outside of the SGC, while all the 'classified' technologies were built and installed in the Armor Lab.

After the fourth straight day, Harry finally managed to escape the 'eggheads' as Jack would call them, and down to level 28. He flung himself into an empty chair in the Control Room and watched the bustle of the techs and his eyes found the Stargate and just stared at it for a while to clear his mind and frustrations.

"Rough day, Ambassador?" said Sergeant Davis, who was manning the Stargate controls and Dialing computer.

"Urgg," said Harry inarticulately and rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands, "the boys in the Armor shop are enough to drive anyone up the wall."

"I guess they're just slightly miffed at you for 'liberating' the CAT and finishing 'their' work so quickly," said Davis, shrugging.

"So it's their pride that's ruffled," concluded Harry, shaking his head. "Great, all I would need now to round off this day would be for a Galactic crisis to arise of some sort…"

The Stargate lit up and its inner wheel began spinning, alert klaxons ringing throughout the base. Harry slapped his hand to his head.

"…I just had to say it, didn't I?"

As it turned out, it was the Tok'ra to arrive, to deliver some worrying political intelligence on the Goa'uld. The Tok'ra herself was named Ren'al; she was a short slender woman wearing an elegant set of brown robes and had her hazel hair tied in a bun behind her head. Harry had never met her in his time as a Tok'ra, but only knew of her reputation as a superb scientist in the field of organic and inorganic chemistry, and thankfully she didn't have Anise's lack of scientific morals. Harry was rather curious why she would be the one to deliver this intelligence.

Harry, SG1 and General Hammond were seated around the briefing room table, while Ren'al stared at the main display screen showing a digital rendering of the Milky Way that slowly rotated.

"The deaths of Chronos and Apophis created a power vacuum that the remaining System Lords have been trying to exploit. Over the past several months they have suffered heavy losses and expended an enormous amount of resources fighting amongst themselves," reported Ren'al, turning back to face them.

"Let the good times roll," said Jack with a grin.

"Unfortunately the good times may be coming to an end. They've declared a truce. And now it looks as if they are going to have a meeting to discuss the establishment of a new order," said Ren'al. Harry was surprised to see that she delivered the apparent bad news with eagerness.

"So you want to stop them?" asked Hammond.

"Quite the opposite actually. We want them to meet. It'll give us the rare opportunity to strike against all of them at once."

"You're talking about taking out the entire Goa'uld leadership?" said Sam slightly incredulously.

"We are," said Ren'al stoically.

"Welcome to the Dark Side," said Jack with a grin. Harry rolled his eyes at that quip.

"This has always been part of our long-term plan. We just weren't quite prepared for the opportunity to present itself so quickly," explained the Tok'ra.

"Where exactly is this meeting taking place?" asked Daniel curiously.

"A space station in the Hasara system. It is considered neutral territory. Security will be tight, no weapons will be permitted on board and access will be by cargo ship only," said Ren'al.

"Defenses?" asked Jack.

"Impenetrable," said Ren'al dismissively.

"Could we possibly gain entrance on one of the cargo ships?" asked Teal'C.

"They'll be scanned on their approach to the station."

"Okay. Let's hear it," said Jack with a resigned air, bracing for the worst.

"Every System Lord in attendance will be permitted to bring one human slave," said Ren'al and her eyes found Harry's meaningfully. This was not lost on SG1 and General Hammond.

"You want me for this?" asked Harry with a raised eyebrow.

"You can speak fluent Goa'uld and you were one the best infiltrators we had while you were among us," said Ren'al reasonably, "and you possess the technological ability to mimic the appearance of others." Harry tented his fingers under his chin contemplatively and looked pensive as he considered the plan.

"While I agree that this is a near perfect opportunity to deal the Goa'uld a crippling blow, I'm not so sure we should do so," said Harry eventually.

"What?" asked Ren'al, looking astonished. Harry looked to General Hammond questioningly and the two men's eyes met for a moment…the General nodded.

"We have received some intelligence of our own that you do not have," said General Hammond. "You are aware of the destruction of the Tollan?"

"Yes," nodded Ren'al, looking sad. "It was with great sorrow that we learned of their demise."

"SG1 and the Ambassador was present in the events leading up to it," said Hammond and delivered a relevant summation of the facts to the Tok'ra; the ineffective Ion Cannons, the Goa'uld weapons deal, Thoth, Harry's scans of the Goa'uld ships showing them to have shields based off of Ancient knowledge. "The bottom line is Ren'al; we have a Goa'uld out there not affiliated with the System Lords with access to Ancient technology."

Ren'al stared worriedly at a Tablet PC handed to her with the relevant scans on it.

"If we were to take out the System Lords now…" started Harry.

"…it would mean this Goa'uld Thoth reports to would be unchallenged to take over the Goa'uld Empire," concluded Ren'al with a sigh, lowering the Tablet PC to the desk. "The minor Goa'uld would not stand a chance against Ha'tak such as these," she gestured to the sensor profiles of the motherships that had attacked Tollana.

"The long feudal war you were hoping to re-ignite would turn out to be a very short one, with this mystery Goa'uld emerging as the clear overwhelming victor with the entire Goa'uld Empire at his command."

"Do you mind if I bring this data to the Tok'ra in operational command of the mission?" asked Ren'al gesturing to the Tablet PC.

"Not at all," said General Hammond.

"But this does not mean I think we should cancel the mission entirely," said Harry with a raised finger. "I think instead we should turn it into an intelligence gathering mission. I could still infiltrate this meeting. I mean the political and strategic intelligence we could learn would be invaluable." Ren'al thought about this for a moment.

"Very well, but I cannot make any promises on what the Tok'ra will decide to do in the end," she said.

The SGC engaged a subspace path to Revana, the current base of the Tok'ra. And Ren'al used the small subspace transmitter in the Control Room to send off all the data and a detailed report in an urgent encrypted communiqué. It was barely two hours later when an incoming subspace path delivered a response. Ren'al decrypted the message in private and a few minutes later everyone assembled in the Briefing Room again.

"Selmak has operational authority over the mission," said Ren'al, Sam perked up, "after reviewing your intelligence he has come to the same conclusions. The mission will be one of intelligence gathering only."

"Very well," nodded Harry. "I will see you tomorrow then."

That evening Harry decided to sleep in his quarters in the SGC. He willed his chromesuit to disengage and it settled itself into the specially designed container that allowed it to recharge itself. He flicked off the lights and settled under the covers of his bed.

In the haze of trying to fall asleep in the next few minutes he did not pick up the changes going on around him. The air was suddenly different, instead of the fresh air that was ventilated through the SGC, the recycled air of a life support system was now pulled into his lungs as he breathed. The volume of the room he was in suddenly expanded. It was only as Harry felt the distortion in the space time continuum that screamed itself into his senses that he gasped and sat up in bed, his heart racing.

His eyes met a new scene around him. Instead of his quarters in the SGC he found himself in the center of a large circular room easily fifty meters in diameter. The room stretched high above into darkness easily fifteen floors. Each circular floor was open towards the center of the room where he lay in his bed. Bright lights shone from equidistant spaces on each of the floors…and standing in front of each light was tall strong figures in some form of strange laboratory clothing. Harry couldn't make them out further beyond that.

The room had an ominous, monolithic feel to it. He could hear whispers of hushed conversations coming from the mysterious figures as they spoke to each other. Occasionally, one or two would walk to another spot in the room and converse with another. The din of machinery was also in the background.

The ringing sound of approaching footsteps echoed through the large room. From one of the shadows on the ground floor a figure was coming closer. It was tall, and appeared to be wearing robes of some kind he could not make out.

Harry flung the covers off himself and got out of the bed, totally unabashed at the show he was giving these mysterious beings. He stood and mentally prepared himself for anything…to flee, fight, kill, anything.

"You can relax, Harry," said the approaching figure in a raspy, yet strangely familiar voice that he could not place.

"Oh I doubt that," retorted Harry. "You've abducted me bed and all, across space and Time itself…and I'm supposed to relax!"

The figure stopped remaining in the shadows and chuckled heartily, "Amazing, you do not disappoint, Harry. There's been betting on how quickly you would figure it out."

"I doubt that you've ripped me across Time just for a bet," said Harry edgily. "And I can't count how many Temporal Laws of Causality this violates."

"Ah, yes well," the figure looked uncomfortable, "when one is desperate beyond hope you will reach to anything to protect those you love, and preserve that which you know."

"And how does this do that?" asked Harry incredulously, gesturing to himself and around him.

"This," gestured the figure, "is the last attempt to make a difference in a completely hopeless struggle against an enemy that make the Goa'uld look like children playing around with toys." Harry's eyes widened at that statement. "What you see around you Harry is the last vestige of freedom in the entire local Galactic Cluster and it is under siege."

"What?" said Harry, his mind struggling to come to terms with the concept as he looked around, however, he did manage to ask a more pertinent question. "Who?"

"I'm afraid I can't name the enemy," said the dark figure. "That would be going too far."

"_Nullus Agnitio_!" cussed Harry in Alteran. "You've gone this far already!"

"Calm down, Harry and let me explain," said the figure somewhat imploringly. Harry folded his arms in response and glared, but remained quiet. "The method we used to pull you through Time allows us to avoid most of the Temporal side effects experienced with Paradoxes. You see, we haven't actually brought you into the future…we've overlapped this space," he gestured to the circumference of the floor around the them, "and my current Time with yours, creating a zone of neutral time…in theory we could remain in such a zone for eternity…the hands of time have been stopped."

Harry blinked at this feeling rather awed and amazed. The Alterans had experimented with Time Travel, he knew, but their few successful attempts had resulted in a number of bad paradoxes that convinced them to stay away from pursuing it. Clearly, it seemed in the future, that Terran's had not made the same decision.

"I understand what you are saying," said Harry slowly, "but the power requirements must be…unreal."

"It is, was and will be," said the figure with a chuckle. "However, once the neutral time zone was initiated it will remain in place until it is purposefully dissipated…remember time stands still in here…theoretically we have all the time in the Metaverse."

Harry nodded but turned a gimlet eye towards the figure, "I guess your identity must remain hidden from me as well. Eh? I can sense from my surroundings that you are telling the truth about the neutral time zone, but how can I be sure of your 'friendly' intentions? What if 'you' are the enemy?"

"Indeed," said the figure solemnly, "you cannot know my identity. As for proof of my allegiance, goodness, or that I am not the enemy…well…" the dark figure suddenly produced a blindingly bright aura of white purity and power that radiated outward with multiple tendrils that waved in an unseen wind. The figure's face was still shielded but that power Harry would recognize clearly as belonging to someone with a pure and enlightened spirit. Feelings and sensations flowed across Harry as the figure 'spoke' in the true language of the spirit that was beyond words…it still gave no clue as to the identity of the figure, but in the end Harry was satisfied. The brilliant aura retracted and the room descended into its dark gloom once more.

"Very well," nodded Harry. "I am satisfied. You're a former Ascended…how come you are on this plane?"

"It was my own choice and one out of dire necessity," said the figure sadly. "Now we come to the reason for all this, and what we can do…despite the laws of time."

"In the future, Earth will explore with a youthful fervor and expand its influence in mostly peaceful ways," began the figure, "while it is to be lauded and so on, that urge to explore will unwittingly attract the attention of the enemy. The initial conflict that followed was small, but it laid the seeds for the greater darkness to come. It scattered once strong allies and caused great mistrust between the major powers, weakening them. The enemy then seized on the opportunity and attacked in surprise and in force with hardly anyone able to stop them."

"Divide and conquer, the oldest and most effective tactic in the book," said Harry unimpressed.

"Yes," nodded the figure, "the war to follow laid waste to three entire Galaxies. And for many generations we were laid under the oppression. A Resistance movement was begun and slowly but surely we took back what was ours."

"But…" said Harry expectantly.

"We were beset by a massive counter-attack that undid everything," said the figure angrily. "We had traitors and double-agents in our ranks. And so after nearly a century of fighting it has all boiled down to this last outpost." The figure gestured around him.

"And now you are turning to Time Travel to perhaps change it?" asked Harry.

"Indeed, and the instrument of that change will be this," said the figure, and he bent down placing something on the ground. It was sent sliding over to Harry's feet and stopped against them. It was a white plastic rounded briefcase that looked to be hermetically sealed. On top of the briefcase was a small screen that flashed with Alteran script. Harry bent down and picked it up, it was surprisingly light. He debated on whether to read the script or let the figure tell him what it meant.

"What's this?"

"That, Harry, is the instrument, or rather what is inside," said the figure somewhat enigmatically, "it is a nanotech artificial virus with a very specific purpose." Harry's first thought was to vaporize the thing immediately with vacuum energy, but his instinctual reaction was dampened when he realized that this mysterious figure from the future would hardly give him something that would kill…their commune of spirit told him that.

"What purpose is that?"

"To genetically enhance Terran brain and body physiology by…a considerable margin," said the figure casually. Again Harry was struck with speechlessness and struggled to form a coherent question.

"How considerable a margin?" said Harry…hoping that was not his own voice that just squeaked.

"It depends on the individual," said the figure, "but in terms of brain utilization, a minimum of an extra ten percent to an upper ceiling of thirty percent." Harry inwardly goggled at that; his own brain capacity was hovering at fifty five percent usage at the moment. "In terms of enhanced body physiology, faster reflexes, greater strength, visual acuity, enhanced immune function, at between ten to fifty odd percent. A few future evolutionary differences will also come as a side effect, of course, it's all detailed in the data module on the case." A worrying thought occurred to Harry.

"What will this things affect be on the Alteran descendents on Earth and me?"

"Again it depends on the individual," said the figure, "generally, the same thing as what will happen to the Terrans. Their physiologies will be further enhanced along the evolutionary ladder, however, in your case, not much will happen, genetically speaking you're as far up as you can go, the nanites will recognize this and only act on the superficial evolutionary changes. In addition, the nanites have a database at their disposal on whom most definitely not to enhance significantly, due to their…past actions, and personalities."

"What about visitors to Earth?"

"If the nanites are distributed properly, they should complete their work in two months and then cease to function," said the figure, "anyone coming though the Earth Stargate or landing on the planet will not be infected. The nanites are smart enough to know not to enhance such persons."

"Indeed," said Harry with an amazed glance at the briefcase. The level of nanotechnology embedded within the case was amazing work. "I assume there is a distribution plan in the data module?"

"Yes, everything you will need is on it," nodded the figure. Harry knew instantly that he could not confide of this in anyone…maybe with Apollonia, but no one else.

"Is that all?"

"Yes, I'm afraid, I'm struggling to resist the temptation to violate the temporal laws," said the figure uncertainly, "I don't know if this will be enough…"

"It will have to be," said Harry grimly. "Send me back…"

**Revana, Tok'ra homeworld, Present time…**

Jacob Carter, former United States Air Force General, former terminal Cancer patient, former resident of Earth, now host to the Tok'ra symbiote Selmak, and seated on the High Council of the most important resistance organization in the Milky Way Galaxy, walked towards the Revana Stargate in a rather pensive mood. He glanced around at the lush green-forested landscape of Revana and couldn't help but to try to draw parallels to Earth.

Earth. Or as the Goa'uld, Tok'ra and Jaffa knew it…Tau'ri.

As host, Jacob knew how Selmak viewed his fellow Terrans that were venturing forth through the Galaxy…with a combination of amazement and respect, but also with deep worry and concern. Selmak often stated that Earth was either a shining jewel of hope for the future…or the vanguard of the death knell waiting to fall.

"Are you ok, Selmak?" asked Aldwin worriedly. Jacob glanced at his fellow Tok'ra walking beside him for a moment and then looked ahead to their path.

"Fine," said Jacob. Aldwin was primarily an infiltrator and when not he worked as an aide to the High Council in whatever endeavor was currently underway. "Just cursing our own luck, or bad luck, as it were."

"I know what you mean," said Aldwin. "The opportunity for a collective assassination of the System Lords was something we only thought would occur in another hundred years. There hasn't been a meeting like this since the collapse of the last Dynasty."

"And now that we have the opportunity, we can't use it," said Jacob with a dejected sigh. "You saw the intelligence on the fleet that attacked Tollana."

"I find it hard to believe the Tollans were defeated that easily, then again, retrospectively it should've been obvious," said Aldwin.

"They got lazy, overconfident and sloppy, and paid for it," said Jacob shaking his head. At that point they were approaching the Stargate…and right on time, it burst into life with the shimmering effect of waterlike plasma and settled into stability. Stepping through first, were SG1, followed quickly by SG16 a newly commissioned team led by Major Mansfield, with a newly promoted Captain and two rookie officers; Lieutenant Elliot and Higgins. Aldwin was assigned to do the offworld orientation of the new SGC officers; since history was a passion for the Tok'ra, he enjoyed it.

Last out of the gate, was the Asgard Ambassador Harry, former host to the Tok'ra Jamilla, the focus of their current mission, and the reason for its reassessment. He was clad in the seemingly multifunction suit of chrome that Selmak would love to examine. Jacob understood the suit was Asgard technology of a type but it was far above his head. Tearing himself away from his introspection he caught up with Aldwin to greet their visitors.

"Welcome to Revana!" said Jacob, a smile blossoming on his face as he saw his daughter Samantha come toward him.

"Hi Dad," said Sam. Jacob gave her a brief hug.

"It's good to see you Sam. Jack, how are you?"

"Kinda curious on this ol' mission," said Jack with narrowed eyes.

"Ambassador," nodded Jacob, shaking hands with Harry.

"Selmak," said Harry, who was looking strangely preoccupied and distant; as if he was staring at something only he could see. Jacob shrugged it off, he only had Selmak's memories of interactions with Harry, and Selmak found Harry to be a strange, enigmatic, frighteningly intelligent Hok'taur. Not even Jamilla, who was now in another host, would speak of the things she had learned when she was blended with Harry, something which frustrated the High Council greatly.

"Some of you know Aldwin. He'll be conducting the orientation for your new officers," explained Jacob, rubbing his hands together to generate a bit of warmth in the cool early morning air.

"We'll begin with a tour of the facilities. After that I have prepared a lecture on the development of Tok'ra insurgency techniques since the collapse of the second Goa'uld dynasty," said Aldwin with an excited grin and polite tone.

"I take it all back Lieutenant. This could be hot," said Jack sarcastically to Lieutenant Elliot who grinned in response. Obviously the punchline of joke that had begun in the SGC. Selmak was rather amused at the Terrans; their taste in humor was refreshing.

**Revana; Tok'ra Underground Base, Conference Room**

Harry sat in his favored posture of thoughtful fingers tented under his chin at one side of the triangular shaped table, where the rest of SG1 and Jacob also sat. Listening attentively to the particulars of the upcoming intelligence-gathering mission. All the while in another part of his mind, he contemplated the revelations of the mysterious man from the future and the singular burden that was thrust upon him…to be responsible for giving a quantum leap in the evolution of his own race.

"So which System Lord am I going pander to?" asked Harry dryly.

"Yu will be among the System Lords attending the meeting," said Jacob.

"I thought you said he'd be going in as a slave?" said Sam with a toothy grin.

"The System Lord Yu," said Jacob, looking at his daughter with a recriminating stare.

"Little joke there," said Sam, her grin not fading one bit, as she made a 'small' gesture with her fingers.

"Funny," said Jack with a wry grin.

"Who will Harry be masquerading as?" asked Daniel curiously.

"This," Jacob held up a purple Tok'ra computing slate, "contains all the physical specifications for Yu's Lotar, named Jarren. Using this data, Harry can use his mimic technology to near flawlessly impersonate him."

"Lo…Lotar, what?" said Jack, looking confused.

"Lotar is the highest rank amongst the human slaves of the System Lords," said Teal'C stoically.

"They're like personal attendants. It's considered to be a position of great honor. The Jaffa serve a strictly military role and if the host of a System Lord is ever injured beyond a symbiote's capacity to heal, it can be pretty useful to have a human close at hand. I spent the last couple of months establishing myself as a minor Goa'uld in Yu's service. I'll be able to get Harry on board his mothership and deal with the loose ends," explained Jacob.

"How many System Lords will be at this meeting?" asked Jack.

"There'll be seven System Lords at the meeting. That's all the major players," said Jacob. "The main objective will be to attain intelligence on whoever attacked the Tollans and of course, whatever else is of valuable strategic significance to both Earth and the Tok'ra." Harry nodded in understanding.

"What can we do?" asked Jack.

"Wait here. I'll communicate when the mission has been accomplished."

**Teltak Cargo Ship, en route to Yu's homeworld…**

The pyramidal ship zipped through the blue twilight of Hyperspace on autopilot. In the rear cargo compartment, Harry was busy placing the traditional outfit of Yu's personal Lotar over his chromesuit, while Jacob was dressing himself in what looked to be a traditional silk Chinese robes with intricate dragon patterns.

"So what were you initially going to give me to take out a room full of System Lords, Selmak?" asked Harry curiously.

"Well…" said Jacob, clearly hesitating. "Ren'al and her scientific team have developed a near undetectable poison gas that when inhaled is fatal only to Symbiotes."

"You, the _Tok'ra_, developed a weapon that can just as easily be used on you in turn?" asked Harry, rather astonished.

"It's our most closely guarded secret, consider yourself lucky," said Jacob gravely.

"So, your original plan was to wipe out the System Lords in one fell swoop, create a huge power vacuum that would lead to a Galaxy wide war between minor Goa'uld…and…"

"…we also felt it we could aid the process by using the Symbiote poison to finally wipe out the Goa'uld out…once and for all."

"And the Jaffa?" asked Harry, his mind focusing on Teal'C and the slowly growing Jaffa Rebellion.

"Well that's still a bit of a wrinkle. Unless we can find a way to reverse their biological dependency on immature symbiotes….they'll all die as well."

"A bit of a wrinkle," said Harry faintly, shaking his head and willing the chromesuit to retract itself to his shoulders as he pulled on armbands with the Chinese character 'Zhong中' on them.

"Ambassador, the Goa'uld have been spreading like a plague across the galaxy for thousands of years. Now for the first time they're showing zero population growth. We're not sure why. Now was the best time to do it."

"Another question I'll endeavor to eavesdrop an answer for," said Harry with a grin.

"Are we ready?" asked Jacob.

"Yip."

**Lord Yu's Palace; Yu Homeworld…**

Jarren was a slave seemingly content in his position to serve the Gods, especially his god. The Jade Emperor was the most 'respectable' of the gods in his own opinion. Lord Yu, and merciless to his enemies and yet respected them, and he had a strong sense of honor. He rewarded those who served him well, and punished those who didn't or betrayed him. In these respects the other gods were sorely lacking. He continued to prepare the Oolong tea for his Master when his thoughts and actions were interrupted with the sudden electrical charge of a Zat gun coiling its way over his body with bright tongues of electrical energy.

Jarren fell to the ground to reveal Jacob and Harry, the latter holding the Zat gun.

Harry had studied the data on Jarren and now after seeing him in the flesh, closed his eyes and focused inward. Jacob, who was looking at Harry as he did this blinked and gave a jerk of surprise when he suddenly saw two Jarren's in front of him. Jacob grabbed the unconscious Jarren and dragged him back out of the room.

"Just remember to pour from the right," said Jacob, gesturing to the tea set. Harry nodded and Jacob turned a corner with the body and was gone.

Harry mentally got himself in gear for portraying Jarren and picked the tray set and headed into the inner chambers where Yu would be. But the System Lord was not present at the moment, though Harry sensed the Goa'uld in an adjoining room. Harry put down the tray as the System Lord walked in.

"Kel shak Jarren," said the Goa'uld. Harry turned on knelt with head bowed.

"I am your loyal servant," confirmed Harry respectfully.

"Rise. I will have my tea," said Yu with a satisfied nod.

**Neutral Goa'uld Space Station; Hasara System**

It was a monster of a space station. It looked like a spinning top but was more angular and pyramidal in the final analysis. The upper reaches were over a kilometer in width, which tapered downward into the reactors in the lower levels. The station was colored in the typical naquadah black and gold favored by the Goa'uld in their ship design. The station slowly rotated on its own axis to remain in a stationary position relative to the System Primary, which it orbited at 4.2 A.U.s. And sported shields with massive power reserves that would take almost fifty Ha'tak to make a dent in; hence it was impossible for any one System Lord to assault it alone without incurring a massive loss in military assets that they could never recover from, making it perfect neutral territory.

Yu was piloting the Teltak while Harry remained in the co-pilot chair.

"Identify yourselves," came the instruction from the space station.

Harry thumbed the subspace transmitter and spoke on Yu's behalf as was proper for a Lotar when dealing with such menial tasks, "I represent the Jade Emperor, the exalted Lord Yu Wang Shang Ti."

"Two life signs scanned. No weapons detected. Lowering shields," said the Goa'uld coordinating the station.

"Our fellow System Lords are not to be trusted. Neither are their slaves," said Yu sternly.

"Understood, my lord," nodded Harry.

Yu expertly guided the Teltak to dock with the station.

8888888888888888888

Harry had imagined many different scenarios as to what he would do when walking into a room full of System Lords; the most fun one was coming in guns blazing, the other was where he would engage them in hand-to-hand…or plant a bomb, or just fling Killing Curses and be done with it, or engineer an artificial singularity device and set it off…knowing that the collective System Lords would experience their death for an increasing infinity of time as they got sucked into the artificially generated Universal sinkhole as time dilated and expanded.

He never imagined walking in under disguise as a Lotar to a System Lord.

"Lord Yu Wang Shang Ti," announced the Lotar standing near the door and playing usher.

Yu didn't sit immediately down, instead he took a surveying walk around the room with Harry in tow.

"Note them, Jarren. Our future allies," said Yu, pointing towards the various System Lords in attendance. The first that caught their eyes were two elegantly dressed Indian women, talking under their breaths to each other.

"Bastet. Kali the Destroyer," said Harry, recognizing them. "They made a treaty with Sobek, and betrayed him at the banquet feast not a few hours later. His head still decorates Bastet's palace in Mubastas."

"You have a good memory. They are still worthy of my allegiance. Do not accept gifts from Baal," said Yu, pointing to the dark haired System Lord wearing heavy brown robes and walking with a ceremonial staff.

"They have a habit of exploding especially when he feels he has been slighted. He wiped out the inhabitants of two star systems, sixty million lives, rather than lose them to Sokar in a territorial dispute," said Harry, inwardly sneering at the hated System Lord.

"Poor loser," said Yu with contempt. Next in view was an arrogant looking white woman wearing a black corset flaring dress talking to her muscular Lotar. "Do not consort with Morrigan's servant."

"He will attempt to draw strategic information in seemingly idle conversation. I know your last servant unwittingly gave away the location of one of your secret bases in Velong, to his credit, he was killed in the surprise attack. It is what has given me the honor to serve you, my Lord."

The next System Lord was a tall black man wearing stylized robes based off animal skins and also walking with a staff.

"Olokun is still seething over a recent loss to my forces. He may try to kill you out of spite. Do not make me look foolish by allowing yourself to be murdered."

"Yes, my Lord," nodded Harry. Yu finally approached his own seat and Baal was waiting.

"Yu," greeted Baal and they bowed to each other. "I am pleased you were able to join us given recent events. I understand your fleet suffered some heavy losses."

"I am not the only one. Did I not hear that your flagship was destroyed?" asked Yu pointedly.

"I lost two thousand Jaffa," said Baal in irritation.

"Such is war," agreed Yu.

"No. This is different. This enemy attacks like a coward. Bastet and Kali have suffered similar setbacks. They are becoming more frequent while the identity of our antagonist continues to elude us," said Baal in anger.

"I am certain you have your suspicions," said Yu evenly.

"We are all suffering at the hands of this unknown adversary. By shrouding himself he sows discord amongst us," said Baal with narrowed eyes. Harry wondered if the mystery Goa'uld and the one taking pot shots at the System Lords were one and the same…it was likely, and so very interesting.

Harry continued standing by Yu's side as he talked amongst the various System Lords in the informal talk session of the meeting. There was an interesting development though in that the gathering was expecting an eighth attendant whom had yet to arrive. Soon enough there was a chiming sound and the Goa'uld sat down in their various assigned chairs, though they looked almost like thrones. Harry stood behind Yu with his tea ready to be served.

"This has gone on long enough. We must determine who is responsible for these attacks," said Yu angrily.

"The coward refuses to show himself. He only strikes with his ships never with ground troops," stated Baal.

"None of you have seen the faces of the enemy Jaffa?" snarled Yu in annoyance.

"I have," said Bastet, after a calculated look at her fellow System Lords. "When my outpost at Zeldor came under assault, my First Prime managed to disable and board one of the enemy ships."

"Did you take any prisoners?" asked Yu archly.

"They fought to the death. Most had been in service of Cronus and Sokar. But one bore the mark of Olokun." This caused everyone to turn their angry eyes to the tall System Lord in question, whose lips thinned in response.

"How do you explain this?" demanded Yu.

"One of my motherships was surrounded by the enemy," said Olokun, looking uncomfortable…if a System Lord could ever be as such. "Instead of dying with honor, the cowards surrendered and were taken. They may well have switched their allegiance."

"And you expect us to believe this?" asked Baal dryly.

"I too have suffered at the hands of this unseen foe. How dare you accuse me!" snapped Olokun.

"Excuse me, my lords," said the Lotar manning the door, which opened behind him. "The final guest has arrived."

The Lotar moved out of the way. Harry blinked…and had to blink again, thinking he was seeing a ghost. Walking sensually into the room was a nubile curvy woman that seemed radiate seduction and beauty as a tangible aura from her. Adding to this was the fact that she wore only artfully stylized golden paint all over her body and a small ornate silver groin shield. Her hair was dark as night and cut perfectly to fall halfway down her neck. Her eyes took in the room before her with a dark gleam and her mouth with full lips curved in a half mocking smile.

Harry groaned internally and cursed himself thrice over.

"I hope I'm not late," said the near naked woman.

"Welcome…Anuk-sun-amun."

_A/N: Aha! Those pesky Goa'uld has more lives than a cat, don't they. Stay tuned for next chapter._


	23. Chapter 23

_**Chapter Twenty-Three – Prometheus**_

**Goa'uld Space Station; Hasara System**

"I thank you for honoring my request," stated Anuk-sun-amun (Anuk) her seductive voice ringing in Harry's ears.

'_I should've vaporized her pretty ass when I had the chance,_' groused Harry internally.

"Normally a petition for a seat at this conference would not have been considered. Of course the current situation is far from normal," said Olokun gravely.

"I think you'll find I have much to offer. Shall we proceed?" said Anuk with a smile as Harry served another dose of tea for Yu.

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Anuk's initial petition had lasted for over an hour, and it reminded Harry that she was a cunning negotiator and her seductive presence was clearly being used to full effect to sway the other System Lords. She remained standing and no seat was brought for her, obviously due to practical considerations for her body paint and to keep her figure in prominent view of everyone…Harry noticed that even Morrigan (who had a reputation for her taste in powerfully sculpted men) looked swayed by the sex appeal.

"…weakness is befalling the System Lords. If this tenuous alliance crumbles it will leave the Goa'uld vulnerable to threats that exist outside this galaxy. We must put aside our differences and individual struggles for power to strengthen the Goa'uld and ensure our supremacy over those who threaten our domination."

"You speak of grand principle…" said Yu contemptuously. Harry's respect for Yu had jumped up another notch since the appearance of Anuk, he was not phased one iota by her presence.

"But you have no official seat here," said Baal, though it looked as if the System Lord looked rather eager for that to be corrected.

"Then I ask you to officially recognize my status here," said Anuk, gesturing gracefully around the room.

"What do you offer as support for your claim for position as System Lord?" said Baal curiously.

"Nothing," said Anuk lightly, "I am here to represent the vote of another."

"Whom do you serve?" asked Yu with narrowed eyes.

"Anubis."

It took all of Harry's mastery over himself not to flinch and breathe heavily. It took all of his control not to blast Anuk into her constituent atoms. His iron will clamped down on his racing thoughts and emotions, and he gritted his teeth…though he was careful to do it behind his closed lips. The System Lord's reaction was much more overt.

"What!" snapped Olokun.

"You lie!" hissed Baal, seemingly forgetting his enamored state with Anuk at the mention of the name.

"He is dead!" shouted Yu, his voice ringing through the room.

"That was what you assumed after you attempted to murder him. Was it not enough that he was banished from the System Lords?" said Anuk with a smirk.

"Never to be allowed to return!" snapped Yu.

"That was long ago and only one System Lord remains from that time," she said, staring at Yu pointedly. "He has sent me to ask that you accept him back or place yourselves at his mercy."

'_We are so screwed_,' thought Harry with a deep sinking feeling in his gut. Anubis, the Egyption God of the Underworld, was a Goa'uld as Anuk mentioned on par in age and experience with Yu. Anubis was considered a demon, a defiler, a destroyer, in the Tok'ra archives he was even once referred to the as the very antithesis of life itself. His acts were so evil, that even amongst the Goa'uld they were considered unspeakable. The last anyone had seen of him was over a thousand years ago, when he was banished by the System Lords of the time.

The identity of the mysterious Goa'uld was seemingly solved. And to make it worse, he had somehow acquired Ancient knowledge…it was a nightmare scenario. It seemed also that the Goa'uld had gotten their own answer as to who had so effectively been attacking their forces.

"We will recess for one hour to consider," stated Yu in a tone that brooked no argument. The other System Lords nodded in agreement and rose from their seats and walked away from the conference room.

Harry walked dutifully in the wake of Yu as the System Lord moved with a thoughtful and troubled expression on his face. The corridors were the typical gold and obsidian design that Goa'uld employed on their ships and stations, made to look the same almost everywhere to confuse infiltrators and spies. Harry was rather startled when they passed a hip height ornate container, decorated with relief statues of Goa'uld symbiotes…a ceremonial holding tank. What was that doing there?

They finally entered Yu's quarters and Harry automatically began brewing more tea, but Yu interrupted him halfway into the preparation.

"Speak to me Jarren," said Yu with a sigh, "as Lotar you have been educated in the History of the gods. Tell me what you think of Anubis' return?"

"Master, I am but a humble slave," said Harry with his head bowed. "My thoughts are irrelevant in matters of the gods."

"All my fellow System Lords are falling for this trap Anuk-sun-amun is setting on behalf of Anubis, they don't know that **he'shak** the way I do," disagreed Yu. "If I'm to have no allies among my peers I should at least have them among my servants." Harry inwardly sighed…he'd have to be very careful in his answer. He couldn't appear too knowledgeable, as that was a sure way to being found out. And if Anubis was indeed back…then Yu would be the only opponent the demon would have, as such it might turn out that Earth and its allies would have to accept Yu's help and give in return…

"Anubis wouldn't have returned now after a thousand years of hiding just to join the System Lords again, my lord," said Harry carefully.

"Indeed," agreed Yu darkly. "It's merely part of a larger agenda."

"The recent spate of unidentified attacks against you and the others, my lord, could also have been instigated by Anubis…to force a summit such as this…"

"…and in he sends his representative, another former System Lord we had thought dead," continued Yu. "The moment we accept her back, it will give leave for Anubis to return and move amongst us…the others will turn their backs on him…thinking they have a powerful new ally."

"And when the time is right, he will attack you and the others, my lord, when it is least expected," said Harry softly. Any further conversation was interrupted when the door chime to Yu's quarters sounded. Harry moved towards it and thumbed the button for the door to open and stood in the path of the visitor to act as a shield for Yu, as was custom.

Harry backed off with a bow to reveal Anuk standing there in all her near naked beauty. Yu took a seat and gestured for Anuk that she could approach.

"Thank you," said the woman graciously, coming to a stand a few feet away from Yu.

"Do not thank me," said Yu coldly. "Your very presence here is an insult to me. Speak."

"I have come hoping to dissuade you from opposing Anubis' restoration to System Lord," she said silkily.

"Your charms have always been wasted on me," said Yu dismissively, "even before you were killed by Tyr." Harry had the satisfaction of seeing her flinch at the mention of his Asgardian name. "

"Nevertheless," she continued, recovering her poise quickly, "time has taught Anubis humility and respect for the union of the System Lords."

"You take me for a fool," said Yu contemptuously.

"Please," said Anuk dryly, "The Goa'uld have warred with each other since the beginning of time. Anubis has been amassing power so that he may win back your respect. He is also no fool. He knows you would not accept him back without need."

"We do not need Anubis!" snarled Yu.

"Dissent and disbelief previously unseen in the ranks of the Jaffa," said Anuk pointedly, "infiltration and subversion by the Tok'ra and you cannot continue to ignore the threat of the humans on Earth. How many must die, how many dominions must fall and how can we continue to claim to be gods if we cannot act like them? The Tau'ri cannot be allowed to triumph again and again."

"The treaty with the Asgard protect their planet," said Yu dismissively.

"From the System Lords," said Anuk slyly. Harry groaned internally, seeing where this was going. Earth was in trouble, if Anubis attacked using the loophole in the treaty, then the Asgard could not interfere…the bluff was looking as if it was going to be called.

"Who must enforce the treaty upon all Goa'uld," countered Yu.

"But not from one who's been dead for a thousand years," grinned Anuk.

"What do you propose?" said Yu with a considering frown…and this was where the Machiavellian dictum of my enemy's enemy fell short. Despite Yu helping Earth's interests from a certain point of view, the old System Lord would not hesitate to maneuver this powerplay to remove Earth as a future threat in the meantime, while he plotted Anubis' downfall.

"Accept my vote on behalf of Anubis and before he resumes his position amongst you, he will destroy Earth," smirked Anuk.

"How can he accomplish this?" said Yu.

"I'm not at liberty to reveal that…yet," said Anuk. "But rest assured Anubis will deal with the Tau'ri, once and for all."

**Summit Room, Goa'uld Space Station, Hasara System.**

The meeting of the System Lords resumed and Harry stood in the back behind Yu stewing in frustration at not being able to ascertain what Anubis' plan was to destroy Earth. He looked up from his internal musings when Baal spoke.

"Who among us accepts the return of Anubis to the System Lords?"

Baal himself cast the first vote by clasping his hands together and nodding…voting yes. Olokun followed quickly…yes. Morrigan, Kali, and Bastet…yes. The rather quiet and arrogant presence of the System Lord Aries also voted in favor. The result was a forgone conclusion as Yu remained defiant and shook his head…no.

"The vote need not be unanimous," smirked Baal at Yu, "By a count of six to one, Anubis is awarded the status of System Lord and welcomed back among those that lead the Goa'uld. Anuk-sun-amun will be allowed to vote on his behalf."

"You shall not regret this," said Anuk with a satisfied expression.

"May we rule forever," declared Baal to the meeting.

"There is much to discuss in that regard," said Olokun, clenching a fist.

"But first," said Bastet expectantly, looking at the others.

"**Lor kor harek. Sha mel,**" said Baal, raising his hands to the ceiling. Harry was intrigued when the screaming sound of a hidden Ring platform resounded throughout the room. The thick Obsidian rings shot down from the ceiling and settled to materialize the ornate vat of Goa'uld symbiotes he had seen earlier. The rings retreated quickly and the lights dimmed so that the only source of light came from the eerily glowing vat. All of the System Lords stood from their seats and walked around the vat appraisingly…it took Harry a moment to recognize the look in their eyes…that of greed and hunger.

It started with Anuk…she reached into the vat and grabbed a fully mature symbiote out of it. The symbiote squeaked at the mistreatment and its small crystalline eyes flashed indignantly…it was the last thing it did in life as Anuk used both hands to stabilize the slippery symbiote and bit a huge chunk all the way through…the purple gore and insides of the symbiote became visible as it was now in to separate pieces in Anuk's hands as she began to chew…it was a truly sickening sight on so many levels as the other System Lords also grabbed mature symbiotes and joined in the snacking.

Harry considered the implications of this ritual of diablerie…and he now knew why the Goa'uld population was not growing anymore. The Goa'uld themselves were responsible for it. If more symbiotes were spawned and claimed hosts…that would mean more competition for power and more headaches for those up top, it was a way for the System Lords of maintaining their power.

The ritual was concluded and the slaves were sent to prepare refreshment and bring cleaning implements to remove the remains of the dead symbiotes. It was an experience he would rather forget, and he made a note to remove the memory into a Pensive when he returned to Earth.

When talks resumed Yu was quick to point out his conclusion that Anubis had been the mysterious foe that had been harassing the System Lords for the last few months. Harry felt it was a rather last ditch effort by the old System Lord to sow doubt amongst his peers about Anubis' true motives.

"I lost two motherships in that battle," said Bastet, looking angry.

"Your strategy was obviously weak," said Anuk with a dismissive wave of her hand.

"Your master has exacted tolls from each of us," said Yu neutrally. Which was wise, Harry knew that Yu would have to play it carefully as he had very little favor left.

"Yet you have all voted to welcome him back into the fold," countered Anuk with a mock puzzled expression on her face.

"The power he has regained so quickly is worthy of respect," said Baal in answer.

"What does he offer now to repay the damage he has done in garnering his forces?" said Olokun archly.

"Anubis owes the System Lords nothing. He joins you for the greater good of all Goa'uld," declared Anuk.

"Anubis may have grown strong but he does not outweigh the collective power of the System Lords. What deed does Anubis offer as evidence of the dedication you claim on his behalf?" asked Baal pointedly with a raised eyebrow.

"Speak now or leave us," declared Yu, putting down the gauntlet.

"As I have said before," said Anuk carefully, seeing that Yu was gaining the upper hand again, "Anubis believes that the greatest threat to the Goa'uld is that from within. As we meet here, that threat is being greatly weakened. Over the years we have all lost a great deal to the infiltrations, subversions and rebellious acts of the Tok'ra. Today, will be henceforth as known as the day that the blood of the Tok'ra ran free and their rebellion ended for good."

It was the one thing that could cause Harry to break cover and request extraction from Selmak/Jacob Carter.

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**Yu's Cargo Ship.**

Harry crouched next to the mummy-like escape pods stored in the main interior bulkhead of the cargo ship that was still docked with the space station. He was tinkering with the systems of the pod by manipulating the small crystals inside it to disable the homing beacon, which normally broadcasted the pod's position and the fact that it was launched at all.

With that done he reached into a hidden pocket and produced a small curved neon purple Tok'ra encrypted communicator.

"Selmak? You there?" he said, pushing a sequence into a control panel to open the escape pod.

"_Yeah, what's your status?"_

He climbed into the pod and it sealed itself. "I'm leaving via an escape pod…you better be ready to pick me up."

"_Roger that_," came the reply from the Tok'ra. "_Why are you escaping now? You were not due to leave till the end of the Summit."_

"We are in serious trouble, Jacob," said Harry grimly, as the pod jerked abruptly as it was launched out of the cargo ship and into space, with the resultant velocity of the launch it cleared the shield perimeter of the space station within two seconds. "I left because I learned among other things…that there is an immediate threat to the Tok'ra…the base on Ravana has been compromised…it's apparently being attacked by the Goa'uld as we speak."

"_Damn,"_ came the reply. "_Ok, I see the pod, I'll ring you in within a minute…"_

That minute was near unbearable. Being protected from the vacuum of space in a flimsy escape pod was not his idea of fun…where at any moment the space station could wise up and decide to blow it out of space. As it was, Harry was counting on the Jaffa manning the defenses thinking that it was merely a malfunction of Yu's cargo ship.

He breathed a sigh of relief when he felt the ringing sound and white flash of dematerialization. When the world was normal again, there was a loud vibration that rung through the pod…it was only when the pod was opened from outside did her realize that the thing had fallen over once it had finished appearing within Jacob's cargo ship.

Jacob himself was there, still in his Chinese Goa'uld clothing and helped him out of the pod to stand.

"Thanks," said Harry with grin, and shook his head like a dog shaking water off itself and the disguise of Jarren melted away like dust in the wind. They set a course for Revana. "How long?"

"Pushing the hyperdrive to maximum, six hours, but it would be too late for any warning from us to help," said Jacob grimly.

The cloaked pyramidal cargo ship swooped around in a turn as it changed course and disappeared into a hyperspace window.

"What did you learn? Tell me everything…" asked Jacob.

During the entire six-hour journey, Harry told Jacob of the meeting, he told of Anubis' return, of Anuk's return from the dead as well…how Yu was the only Goa'uld to remain in opposition, they debated and drew numerous conclusions on this revelation and strategies for the future.

Jacob also concluded that Anubis must have somehow learned of Ravana, even though it was off the Goa'uld map…that meant that its location could only have come from a traitor or from a captured Tok'ra who was taken off guard and tortured for the information.

Also worrying was the alluded plans to attack Earth. What it entailed they could only guess at. They agreed that Anubis would most likely not park a fleet of Goa'uld attack vessels in orbit around Earth…such an attack was too overt and it took the risk of giving carte blanche to the Asgard. Whatever the attack would take the form of though…they would soon find out.

The cargo ship left hyperspace a few light minutes from Ravana.

"Scanning…" said Jacob and a holographic screen appeared as a HUD. "That's odd…there's no sign of a mothership in orbit…but there is one that's landed a few miles away from the Stargate…in addition to troop transports, but I've detected the remains of numerous Al'kesh and Gliders in a circumference around the mothership…"

"It looks like the mothership shot them down…" said Harry in confusion.

"Wait, I'm getting a hail from the mothership…"

The scans were replaced with a rather haggard looking Samantha Carter, who looked liked she'd been through a dozen battles. Her face split into a smile at the sight of her father.

"Hi dad…"

"Sam? What's going on? Why are you in that mothership?"

"Ravana was attacked not a few hours after you both left," said Sam with a tired grin. "They blocked our escape through the Stargate with an incoming wormhole, while the mothership dropped troops and other attack craft. Luckily, we had that vial of symbiote poison that you were going to take. The Tok'ra dug a tunnel towards the mountains and escaped to the surface and scattered as far away as they could with Teal'C." Now her face turned sad. "Lieutenant Elliot was injured gravely in the bombings, the rest of his team was killed…there was nothing we could do for him, but he volunteered to allow himself to be captured, with the symbiote poison hidden on his person."

Harry frowned in sadness at the loss of life. It was clear what happened next. Elliot…on his first ever mission, was taken by the Jaffa towards the Stargate, where the staging area for all the Jaffa and troops were. He had detonated the symbiote poison…wiping out every Jaffa within a radius of five kilometers. When the mothership lost contact with the ground troops and sent more whom promptly died before they could report back…the Goa'uld in charge, Zipacna, was forced to land the mothership itself…this of course was also fatal for any Jaffa on board and Zipacna himself.

That left the Al'kesh and Gliders still combing the area…which were destroyed when Jack, Sam and Daniel rushed into the mothership and commandeered it, blasting them out of the sky.

"It'll be another hour or so before the poison dissipates," said Sam eventually. "We will then try to gather the scattered Tok'ra and leave in the mothership."

"Any idea of casualties among the Tok'ra?" asked Harry grimly.

"I can't say exactly, but the Jaffa did manage to breach the base tunnels and there was a few firefights before the order was given to retreat and scatter," she reported. "I'd estimate, thirty to forty percent…but it could've been a lot worse."

"All right," said Jacob sadly, "we're coming in for landing…I'll see you soon, Sam."

"Luv ya, dad," said Sam, and the communication ended as the cargo ship came in for a landing in a virtual sea of the dead.

**SGC, Earth…One week later…**

Harry stepped through the subspace path and into the SGC with somewhat thinly veiled irritation on his face. He had barely spent two days on Seaworld with Apollonia and his children when the emergency summons came from Earth. The Stargate shut down behind him.

"What's going on Jack?" grumbled Harry, walking down the ramp towards the waiting Colonel.

"We're in trouble, what else?" said Jack rhetorically. "There's a big rock on a collision course with Earth."

He instantly lost his irritation.

A few minutes later found Harry with the rest of SG-1 and General Hammond in the darkened briefing room. Sam was presenting the briefing, and she thumbed a remote. The main screen now displayed what looked like an irregularly shaped asteroid.

"This image was generated based on satellite observations made over the last few hours. The asteroid has an irregular shape but we've calculated its length from end to end to be approximately 137 km," explained Sam.

"I've seen this movie. It hits Paris," quipped Jack, making doodles on a sketchpad.

"Actually Sir, it'll strike somewhere in the Arctic Circle, probably Greenland or the Barren Sea," countered Sam with a grin at the reference to the movie 'Deep Impact'.

"And nobody knows this but us? How is that possible?" asked Daniel in astonishment.

"Well, the asteroid was actually discovered by a civilian who's since been persuaded to keep it quiet. The reason no one else has detected it is that the object's path is highly atypical," she thumbed the remote again and the asteroid's projected course was displayed on a diagram of the Solar System. "It's a rogue well outside the plane of the solar system occupied by the planets in the asteroid belt. In fact it's a fluke that anyone saw it at all. We got lucky."

"I don't see how in any conceivable way this is lucky," said Daniel grimly.

"Well if this had happened 7 or 8 years ago there would be nothing we could do. The Stargate opens other options for us," said Sam.

"A little help from our friends?" said Jack, and everyone turned to face Harry expectantly.

Harry gave a tired sigh, rubbing his face wearily.

"Ah, the joys of fatherhood," said Jack knowingly.

Harry gave him a brief glare in retaliation and said, "the Asgard won't help. The Protected Planets Treaty states that they cannot prevent natural disasters from occurring on protected worlds. Have you tried the Tok'ra? They've got an Anubis refit mothership thanks to us."

"We've already sent a message asking for their help but so far there hasn't been any reply," said Hammond solemnly.

"Typical," grumbled Jack. "What about our mothership from Chronos? Can't we reassemble the thing?"

"Not in the time available before the asteroid hits, which is eleven days and sixteen hours from now," said Sam.

"What about bringing the _Achilles_ here or using the MEV?" asked Daniel, looking at Harry.

"I could…but I think the time has come for Earth to show that it can stand on its own two feet," said Harry pointedly, looking at Sam. She frowned in response for a few moments and then understanding dawned on her face.

"It's not ready," she objected.

"It's not ready for _combat_," countered Harry. "But it will get you to where you need to go to nuke the thing."

"Are you talking about _Prometheus_?" asked Hammond.

"Yes," nodded Harry. "It's scheduled to be finished within a month, but the only things needed to be done on her are the lower deck airlocks, missile loadout and the PBCs…they are all built and at A-51…they only need to be installed. The main cannon is installed but has still not fired so much as even a test shot, the MRGs are operational however but they are anti-fighter weapons only."

"I see," said Hammond with a frown and turned to Sam, "Major?"

"It's…possible," said Sam with a thoughtful look on her face. "The Ambassador and I would need to go to Area 51 and join the shipyard teams to speed things up a bit, but…I think we can do it, sir."

"Good enough for me," nodded Hammond, "the rest of SG1 will be joining you in the interests of saving time. I'll get on the phone to the President and get the ball rolling on this. However, he has already ordered me to begin Alpha team evacuations through the Gate. Major Davis will be arriving shortly from the Pentagon to co-ordinate."

"Understood, sir," nodded Jack.

"Dismissed."

**Area 51, Nevada Desert, Earth.**

It was an area famed and shrouded in secrecy, conspiracy theory and UFO lore. The subject of popular fiction and ingrained in Western-Terran culture as synonymous with aliens and technology way beyond what people could dream of.

Harry grinned at that thought, it was amazing how one could hide things by actually carefully leaking it in such a fashion that it appealed to people's sense of the impossible and allowing rational thinking to do the rest of the work for you. For Area 51 had exactly that which the conspiracy theorists and UFO nuts claimed it was.

Area 51 was also known by a number of different names; Dreamland, Paradise Ranch, Groom Lake, and finally Neverland. It was actually a remote tract of land in southern Nevada State, located at the southern edge of a large dry salt flat. Officially, the place contained an extremely long airfield and numerous hangar and analysis buildings, the primary purpose of which was to analyze and test 'enemy' aircraft and weapon systems, and the secret development and testing of new craft.

Area 51 was already responsible for the development of the U2 high altitude spy plane, the super fast SR-71 Blackbird reconnaissance aircraft, and the F-117 Stealth Fighter. With the end of the Cold War, like so many other similar facilities in the United States, the inevitable cutbacks and RIFs (Reduction in Forces) followed.

The inception of the Stargate Program changed everything.

Area 51 was now the primary staging and production area for the X- Starship Program and all R on new technologies and knowledge that came through the Stargate. And like Cheyenne Mountain, to preserve secrecy from the hovering commercial and spy satellites orbiting overhead, Area 51 went underground. Five huge underground shipyards had been hollowed out, each at roughly 521 meters in length, two hundred in height and width. That engineering alone was a feat in and of itself, all thanks to the strength of various Trinium alloys that had been developed.

Bordering the shipyards was an underground honeycomb shaped lab complex of thirty floors where experiments and development of new technologies was taking place. Some of these labs were lucky enough to have windows that looked out onto the shipyards themselves. One such lab was called Research Room 1432; and it was here where Harry and the rest of SG1 had gathered to look out upon Shipyard 1…where the relatively large ship that was _Prometheus_ sat berthed with the aid of anti-gravity engines and large connective arms clamped onto the hull.

"Nice!" said Jack appreciatively.

"Wow!" nodded Daniel…Teal'C merely raised an eyebrow and the glint in his eyes showed he was impressed; the reason for this was obvious.

"You like my improvements over the original overall design?" said Harry with an amused look at the Colonel. Jack could only nod with a gleam in his eye as he stared at the _Prometheus_.

"Yeah," said Jack, "I hope you kicked the Wing Commander fan who designed the original bucket of bolts out of here. This is more…Star Wars- Star Destroyer, only without the upper Bridge superstructure and the totally exposed shield generators and it's missing the large flat aft area with the big engines, overall it almost looks like a kite in shape."

"Having your Bridge so exposed out of the main hull is asking for trouble, and there's no way you need engines that big or exposed either," opinioned Harry with a satisfied nod at the ship.

_Prometheus_ was a ship that had the large thick kite design, it dimensions were from fore to aft, 432 meters, port to starboard, 163 meters, dorsal to ventral 150 meters. Its hull had a matt black finish to blend into the void of space and little specks of white showed that 'windows' or viewports were few and far between. (During battle the cabins and rooms with viewports would be darkened). The sublight and hyperspace engine emitters were integrated into the hull and conformed with the contours of it, much like the F117 jet engines were, meaning they were afforded greater protection.

"What weapons does she have or will…have?" asked Jack eagerly.

"MRGs, or Main Rail Guns, dotted along the hull to swat Death Gliders out of the sky, a depleted uranium- trinium - naquadah alloy projectile is accelerated to three kilometers per second and fires in a five shot burst," explained Harry, pointing at the domed gunports turning to Sam with a pointed look.

"Then," said Sam taking her turn, "we have PBCs, or Particle Beam Cannons, mounted next to the MRGs, they fire a constant beam of coherent energy at their target, mainly being Ha'taks in this case…"

"Then there is the main cannon," said Harry pointing to the nose of the Prometheus, with had an odd energy collector like arrangement on it. "Its actually just a huge version of a PBC, and if it can line up a shot and hit its target successfully, you'd have a pretty good chance of critically draining the shields of a Ha'tak but…"

"But…" prompted Jack.

"It's a bloody power hog," said Harry ruefully, "if you fire that thing, you'd lose Hyperspace engines for ten minutes at least. Then there is also the fact that I'm not that confident of its effectiveness or effeciency against Anubis refit Ha'taks."

"Ah, and what about torpedoes?" asked Jack eagerly.

"The Prometheus has multiple launcher tubes for the Anti-Ha'tak missiles we've been using on the F-302s," said Sam. "Recent data from Harry though indicates that we would need a massed strike on an Anubis Ha'tak to destroy it. However, we are working on solving that problem…"

"Admiring the view, lady and gentlemen," came an unfamiliar voice. The group turned to regard a tall man walking into Lab, who wore a dark blue Air Force jumpsuit. He had graying short brown hair and an experienced face with a prominent frown and other expression lines on his face. A great intelligence beamed from his dark blue eyes and he wore a pleasant and satisfied smile on his face as he stopped at the window looking out onto the Shipyard. The stitched patch of an eagle on the shoulders of his jumpsuit revealed the man to be a Colonel.

"Ah, everyone," said Harry, "this is Colonel Ronson, the Captain of the _Prometheus_."

"A pleasure to meet you," said Ronson, shaking Jack's hand first and continuing in polite greetings to everyone. He turned to Harry. "Ambassador, we've been having some difficulty with the forcefield to the fighter bay, and would appreciate the help. I would ordinarily ask one of the Asgard advisors but they're all busy helping with the installation of the Shields."

"That's why we are here," said Harry pleasantly, "we have a standard week to get the ship as ready as it can be for its first flight."

"I thought the asteroid would hit in eleven days," said Jack with a frown.

"Even with the new 1200 megaton naquadah enhanced nukes we have, it won't be enough to obliterate an asteroid of that size, we also don't know yet what is its composition, so we have to deflect the asteroid off its collision trajectory with Earth, if we do it too late the asteroid would still hit, since there is no way something of that mass can be moved quickly," explained Sam.

"Oh," said Jack, blinking.

"Ummm, not to sound rather selfish, but what should I do while we are here?" said Daniel with a sheepish grin.

"Daniel raises a good point," stated Harry. "Colonel Ronson?

"I think you would do well to familiarize yourself with _Prometheus_, Doctor Jackson, it's layout and especially its communications systems. Teal'C, Jack, the internal security systems and the onboard Armory would no doubt benefit from your presence, not to mention the fighter bays. _Prometheus_ has only a skeleton crew at the moment, so you are all welcome to help."

"Personnel problems?" asked Jack pointedly.

"Yes," nodded Ronson with a sigh. "Finding enough people within the Air Force, who can be trained to crew a ship like this is proving difficult, ideally this ship would have a crew of nine hundred. But that would mean spreading the secret of the Stargate and the reality out there to a huge number of people and leaks and loose lips would be inevitable. Luckily, the amount of automation this ship has means its not such a big problem. However, I wouldn't want to fight off a boarding action if we ever pick up uninvited guests…"

"The plans are in the works Colonel," said Harry stridently, "the conference will be in a few weeks, if everything goes well you will have all the crew you need and then some…"

8888888888888888888888888888

As predicted, the next seven days were the most hectic and stressful in recent memory for the men and women working in Area 51. The fate of the planet was riding on getting the _Prometheus_ ready in time. Engineers, metallurgists, physicists, designers all were clamoring inside and outside the ship to check, double- check and even triple check everything.

Harry had spent most of his time going over the primary and secondary naquadah matrix fusion generators that gave the behemoth ship its power. They had been tested and were giving proper output within expected norms but they had never been pushed to their conceivable limits in starship operations, as it would look really bad for the ship to blow up spectacularly and take most of the North American continent with it.

Sam, on the other hand, had her hands full with the navigation systems and the computer network running the ship in general. A whole new Operating System had been developed based off of the Linux OS. A computer could not simply crash on a starship; during Hyperspace travel such an event could be fatal.

Internal Security, had been thoroughly reviewed after Jack and Teal'C had consulted with the teams working on those systems. The cameras operating within the hallways and open spaces of the ship were hardened against attack. The Armory was decentralized; instead of having one big room providing all the hand weapons on the ship, smaller Armories were designated in multiple places on the ship. They also helped in doing some of the brute work of getting the PBCs on board and mounted. Both men were obviously most enamored of the fighter bays.

Prometheus had two such bays. The ventral bay was for take off of the F-302 space superiority fighter and opened about a hundred meters aft from the nose of the ship, like the engines, the bay was contoured to blend into the overall hull design. The bay itself ran almost the length of the ship itself, allowing for a large number of fighters to be carried. The dorsal bay, in turn, was for the landing and receiving of the F-302. However, both bays could be used for either role…in the event of battle damage disabling a bay.

Daniel spent most of his time in the ships' 'Bridge'; however, it was technically a CIC or Combat Information Center. It was buried in the center of the ship with reinforced bulkheads around it and even localized Firestorm Shield emitters, the purpose of which was to keep the ship's 'head' from getting chopped off. There was no way to 'disable' the Prometheus by just gutting the Bridge with a precision strike. The ship would have to utterly annihilated for there to be any harm to befall the Bridge crew. The Bridge itself had a square shape, with a multiple large Plasma screens forming a forward viewscreen of what was outside the ship. The interior design of the Bridge itself was a mix of functional, blocky and Spartan…it was clear that this was a warship.

SG1s resident archeologist and linguist sat at the communications section of the Bridge, which was forward and left of the Commander's chair in the center of the Bridge. He evaluated the ship's linguistic computer to see if the translation matrices actually worked accurately enough.

"_All hands to stations, repeat, all hands to stations,_" came the announcement over the ship's PA system. Daniel jumped in the ergonomic seat at the Comm station and had barely stood and brushed off his SG1 BDUs when Colonel Ronson, his own Bridge crew, the rest of SG1 and Harry entered the room.

"Are we going already?" asked Daniel in astonishment, seeing that everyone was geared up and taking their stations all over the Bridge. Jack grinned in amusement.

"Got carried away in your work again, Spacemonkey?" said Jack, using the hated nickname. Daniel grumbled to himself and was about to vacate the Com station when Ronson waved him back down into the seat.

"Relax, Doctor Jackson, I want you to stay right where you are. There might not be much call for your talents on this mission, but I'm sure you can keep working on the linguistic database, and offer opinions and input as the mission progresses," said Ronson.

"Ok," said Daniel with a sigh.

Harry on the other hand was making sure to take a nice out of the way backseat to the coming events. Like Daniel he would merely be on the Bridge in an advisory capacity. To that effect he found a spot just behind the Weapons Station, forward and to the right of the Captain's chair, which was being manned by a Lt. Cunningham. Jack and Teal'C hovered to the left of Ronson's spot in the middle of the Bridge.

"All right people, let's do this by the numbers," said Ronson to the Bridge at large. "Doctor Jackson, forward viewscreen, give me a picture." Harry saw how Daniel manipulated a few buttons and twirled a sensor ball, and suddenly the large screen came to life and showed the Shipyard in front of the Prometheus and the rapidly evacuating work crews disappearing into blast doors that promptly sealed themselves after they had left. "Good, I want go, no-go for takeoff," ordered Ronson.

"Engineering, go," said Sam, from the said station at the back of the Bridge.

"Weapons, go," said Cunningham, working his controls.

"Sensors, go."

"Helm, go."

"Science, go." There was a brief pause.

"Comm, go," said Daniel.

"Security, go."

"All systems are go," confirmed Ronson, tapping a few controls on his chair. "Area 51 Control, this is _Prometheus_, we are go for flight."

"_Roger that Prometheus,_" came the gruff voice of the ATC, "_friendly and unfriendly birds are out of your predicted ascent path and you are clear…opening roof…_" There was a deep whine of heavy hydraulics as the roof of the subterranean shipyard suddenly opened like great big horizontal window blinds. The blinds that faced up out of the earth was immaculately painted and camouflaged to resemble natural ground from anybody who could sneak a satellite over Area 51, of course, it didn't stand up to close scrutiny, but no one could get close to Shipyard itself so it was a moot point. The big blinds started to move themselves out of the way until finally the _Prometheus_ beheld clear blue sky for the first time. "…_confirm roof retraction_."

"We confirm," said Ronson. "Ok," he breathed heavily as if psyching himself up, "he were go. Helm, AG drives."

"AG drives, aye," confirmed the Helm Officer, who's station was only a meter in front of the Captain's Chair. The Helm Officer, a rather tall brunette with the name Anderson, stitched to her jumpsuit, reached to her left and picked up a thick black rounded helmet that was attached to her station, and placed it over her head. Her eyes were now obscured by small screens that gave real time virtual reality feed of every visual sensor the _Prometheus_ had. Turning her head would change her perspective exactly in relation to the actual position of the ship itself, she was in essence piloting the ship like a fighter. Her left hand found the power yoke while her right pushed a button, before it reached for the control stick.

The rumbling of the Anti gravity drives began to echo through the ship.

"Clear moorings," ordered Ronson. Sam got to work and the results were clear through the viewscreen as the arms that had been keeping the ship steady retracted.

"Clear," reported Sam.

"Clear," confirmed Anderson after turning her head left and right.

"Take us out, Z axis plus six hundred meters."

_Prometheus_ rose out of its Shipyard with a steady thrumming noise that reverberated all over the surrounding area and finally settled to hover at four hundred meters altitude.

"Secure AG drives, bring main sublight engines online." The four contoured pulse emitters on the aft section of the ship began to glow a dull orange. The thrumming noise died down and now a whine echoed across Area 51 as the ship used multiple small plasma thrusters to orientate itself and with no further ado the ship shot up into the sky and out of sight of those on the ground.

_Prometheus_ achieved high orbit less than two minutes later.

"We're in geo-synchronous orbit," confirmed the Helm a moment after, a big exhilarated smile on her face. Which pretty much mirrored the expressions of everyone else, except for Harry who had wore a satisfied grin and Teal'C who looked stoic as always, though the sparkle in the eye showed he was enjoying sharing in the big moment for his Tau'ri allies and friends. Though Earth was far from safe, what they had just achieved was a huge step forward in its security. Now for the first time, Earth could contest any hostile incursion into the Solar System.

"All right, people," said Ronson, his tone settling everyone, "that was a moment we've been working for the past two years, it's past, now we have a new horizon before us. So let's get to work. Sensors, bearing on the asteroid?"

"Bearing 232 mark 004," replied the Sensor Officer, staring at the multitudes of screens around him.

"Helm, set a course."

_Prometheus _broke orbit and smoothly orientated itself for the journey towards the asteroid.

"Speed holding at a 1/4 of light," reported the Helm. "Time to asteroid intercept…forty minutes."

"Well, we're on our way," said Jack excitedly.

"Match velocities and orientation," ordered Ronson.

_Prometheus_ now had to display the finesse of a dancer trying to meet his partner while she was already halfway through the steps on the dancefloor already. Anderson dailed down the sublight drives and had to bleed off velocity and momentum to slow down relative to the speeding asteroid; which was now filling the viewscreen in exquisite detail…it had a real ugly look to it, craters, canyons, fissures, the whole geological kit and kaboodle was there. The ship orientated itself so that its nose pointed in the direction the asteroid was heading in and finally the ship appeared to hover relative to the asteroid.

"We're two kilometers from the surface and holding," reported Anderson.

"Good job, Lieutenant," said Ronson with a nod.

"Ok, so how do we get down there?" asked Jack.

"Well we don't have Asgard transporters, yet," said Sam. "And while we do have an onboard Ring platform, there is no platform on the asteroid to beam to, and we can't take this ship within five meters of the asteroid, which is the minimum distance for the rings to work at without another set of rings."

Jack blinked at her, opened his mouth, closed it and looked puzzled.

"Luckily we brought along the old Osiris cargo ship, that still has its sublight capabilities intact," said Sam with a small grin at her superior.

"Why didn't you just say that?" asked Jack faintly and gathered her, Teal'C and Daniel, and walked off the Bridge towards the ventral fighter bay.

"Are they always like that?" asked Ronson of Harry.

"Indeed," he said and walked over to the Sensor station, where the Captain manning it was beginning a thorough analysis of the asteroid they were about to deflect. The geologists among the staff at Area 51 were chomping on the bit to get good readings and observations before SG1 set off the most powerful nuke ever created yet on the thing.

Ten minutes later the pyramidal shape of a Goa'uld cargo ship shot out of the Prometheus and turned towards one of the largest canyons on the asteroid and sped down it causing it do disappear from visual sensors entirely, but not from subspace sensors. This canyon was chosen because it was at a right angle to trajectory of the asteroid, therefore the nuclear detonation would be channeled to act like a gigantic thruster that 'should' deflect the thing.

"_This is SG1, we're about to land_," said Jack's voice, a few moments later. "_Touchdown! We're beginning EVA, we'll stay in regular contact_."

"Roger, SG1, we've got your backs," said Ronson into his chair com.

The next half an hour passed uneventfully, until Jack announced that the nuke was in position and counting down to detonation in two hours.

"Ambassador," said the Sensor Officer, drawing Harry's attention away from the surface mass spectroscopic scans, which was wholly unremarkable, only Nickel and Iron was present.

"Yes, Captain?"

"Take a look at the gravimetric profile of the asteroid…this can't be right," said the Officer. Harry stared at the screen in question, looking at the data and graphics scrolling across the screen.

"I see what you mean," said Harry with a troubled frown.

"Problem, gentlemen?" asked Ronson pointedly, now standing behind the chair making the Officer jump.

"Sorry, sir, the gravitational attraction of the asteroid is not falling within expected parameters," reported the Officer nervously.

"Easy Williamson," said Ronson patiently, "explain."

"Surface scans show that the asteroid is made up of nickel and iron, but the amount of gravitational pull being exerted by it is much greater than if it actually was made up of those two elements."

"So that would mean the core has to be made up of a heavier element," said Ronson thoughtfully.

"Yes, sir," agreed Williamson.

"Very well, those geologists will just have to wait for their surface scans," said Ronson, "I want you to turn every sensor we have onto that things' core, we need to determine how this would affect the nuclear detonation. Ambassador, please assist."

"Yes, Colonel," nodded Harry and Williamson scooted his chair a little to the side to also allow Harry access to the systems.

"_Prometheus this is SG1 we're RTB."_

"Roger, SG1. We've a bit of a situation here, and I need you to stay out there for the moment," said Ronson.

"_Copy that, please advise_." The cargo ship came to a stop over the asteroid, just above the canyon it had just landed in.

"Stand by," said Ronson.

"Oh my!" blurted Williamson in astonishment. The Bridge crew turned to look at the man in amusement who had a faint blush of embarrassment at his involuntary action.

"What is it?" said Ronson in alarm.

"Umm, sir, the element…" he pointed at the relevant screen. Ronson stared at it, looked at Harry, who could only confirm with a grim nod. The Colonel didn't hesitate and rushed back to his command chair.

"SG1, I want you to get back down in that canyon and disarm that bomb and get it back up here," ordered Ronson in a no nonsense tone. "Sound general quarters, set condition 1!" he ordered. The lights of the Bridge dimmed and blue lights turned on all around the ship, indicating the highest state of alert the ship could go to. The one hundred odd crew rushed to secure their stations and areas as best they could. The few squads of Marines on board rushed to their designated armories and secured their tactical vests and PR-7s.

"All decks report Condition 1," said the Security Officer.

"PBCs and Rail Guns, charged and ready to fire," reported the Weapon Officer.

"_Prometheus, please advise, what is going on!_"

"SG1, the asteroid's core has been scanned, almost 45 of it reads as solid naquadah," said Ronson grimly.

"_Sir_," this time Sam's voice came across the link, "_naquadah is not native to our Solar System_."

"I know, Major," said Ronson with a frown, "but our analysis is confirmed. I believe this whole asteroid business is a Goa'uld plot."

"To circumvent the Protected Planets Treaty, Sam," said Harry with a nod. He had to take his hat off to Anubis on this one. "The Goa'uld brought the asteroid here and set it on a collision course to make it look a natural disaster. They knew the only way we would be able to stop it is with a nuke."

"_So what happens when that nuke goes off?_" asked Jack.

"_Holy Hannah,_" exclaimed Sam over the link, "_the explosion will be enhanced by the naqahdah, probably to the force of a small nova. This close to Earth, it would be enough to set the atmosphere on fire and boil the oceans."_

"The Goa'uld have given us a Catch-22," said Ronson with a touch of anger. "We use the nuke, we might as well be nuking Earth ourselves, we don't use the nuke, the asteroid goes past the fail safe in two days, and we're screwed anyway."

"_So what other options do we have?"_ asked Sam. Silence pervaded the Bridge after that loaded question.

"SG1, after you gather that nuke get back here, we have to come up with a new plan," ordered Ronson.

"Yes, sir."

88888888888888888888888888888

Main Briefing Room, Starship Prometheus

Colonel Ronson, the Bridge crew, SG1 and Harry all took their seats around the large wood-metallic conference table. They were in the designated room where the Captain of the ship would meet with the various department heads and Bridge crews as necessary. Like the rest of the ship it was dimmed but the blue lighting had turned off to allow them to see each other more clearly. The room could seat twenty two people at a time and had the general functional yet futuristic look down pat; large screens behind the head of the table, nice large windows that looked out of the port side of the ship, giving a marvelous view of the rolling and tumbling asteroid and the vast void of space beyond with the infinite starfield serving as a backdrop.

"All right, we know we can't nuke it and can't just let it go, so we're here to come up with a plan B," said Ronson. "I want to hear suggestions. Williamson?"

"Ummm, the main cannon?" said the Sensor officer in a fashion that said he had just blurted out the first thing that came to mind.

"Might as well try to spit against the wind," said Harry in turn, shaking his head. "You'd need a Death Star to make a dent against that rock."

"And I thought I was the only one to make Star Wars references," said Jack with a grin. Harry rolled his eyes.

"What about the _Achilles_," suggested Daniel. "I mean this is in essence an attack on Earth…"

"It's in orbit around Mars at the moment," nodded Harry. "It can be here in a trice, but there is nothing on her that would stop the asteroid without setting off the Naquadah. It doesn't solve the problem in its essence."

"Let's work this out from the beginning from the point of view of the Goa'uld," said Sam with a frown, "we've got a big rock of naquadah encased in nickel and iron somewhere…how did they get it to Sol?"

"That's easy," said Harry with a shrug, "three motherships pulling it with gravitic energy bled off from their engines, pull it through hyperspace…" he trailed off and shot a meaningful look to Sam.

"I get it…Hyperspace, that's it," she said, snapping her fingers in triumph.

"What are you guys talking about?" asked Jack resignedly.

"We expand the _Prometheus_' hyperspace field to encompass the entire asteroid. We take it out of normal space long enough to avoid the collision with Earth," she explained.

"Major…that's…" said Ronson, looking rather flabbergasted at the plan.

"Let me get this straight, you want to ride this ship and the asteroid through Earth?" said Jack in a flat voice.

"It would work," said Harry, but couldn't keep a slight hint of doubt out of his voice. In fact, there were so many things that could go wrong with this idea that he didn't even bother to list them in his own mind.

"To the outside observer, it would disappear on one side of the planet and reappear on the other. The problem is, it would take every ounce of power we've got. The field would have to be expanded far beyond its usual envelope. It could cause the engines to explode," she explained with a wince.

"This ship hasn't even done its shakedown, and you wanna do something that could put us back in drydock for another month or maybe even destroy us," said Ronson slightly incredulously.

"It's a choice between risking the ship or losing the planet, I think its rather an easy one to make," said Daniel delicately.

"I'm aware of that and the consequences, Doctor," groused Ronson. "Excuse me if I am somewhat hesitant to damage or perhaps even destroy something me and my crew have spent the last two years of our lives training and investing ourselves in."

Daniel nodded, looking slightly sheepish. Ronson sighed looking pensive and staring hard at the surface of the conference table, clearly having an internal debate. After a few moments his steely face looked up and met the eyes of Harry and Sam. "How certain are you that this can be done?"

Harry worried his lower lip with his teeth in consideration and eventually said, "It's the only way with the time constraints and other variables we have." The unspoken part that everyone inferred from that statement was '_If it can't be done, then we're screwed._'

"I better send a message to the SGC about what to expect then," said Ronson standing from his seat, causing everyone to rise with him, "dismissed."

The next few hours Harry and Sam appropriated most of the computing power that was available to the Prometheus in calculating the geometry of the improvised hyperspace field and feeding those solutions into the Hyperspace systems.

Earth's response to the revised plan for dealing with the asteroid was hardly enthusiastic. A lot of the scientists at Area 51 were sending hourly messages to _Prometheus_, in particular to Harry and Sam. In one memorable com message, an astrophysicist and contemporary rival of Sam's stated 'ARE YOU NUTS! There is no way you can account for the shifting vectors…blah…blah…blah' Harry had shut down the message at that point because the scientist in question was one Rodney McKay…a man who seemed determined to find a flaw in any theory or deduction that either Harry or Sam brought forth…it was to the point where Harry wondered if the man did it on principle or whether he was just envious.

On the Bridge, the tension was thick enough to cut with a knife.

"We have enough power to jump the asteroid only about an hour prior to its hitting the Earth," said Sam to Ronson.

"That's cutting it rather close, don't you think?" asked Williamson nervously.

"Best we can do, unless we divert power from weapons," said Sam.

"Something I'm not inclined to do," said Ronson pointedly, "there could be cloaked Al'kesh or even a mothership out there waiting to pounce on us." He turned to the Helm. "Ok, Anderson, you heard the Major."

"Yes, sir," said the Helmswoman, placing her hands on the controls. "One hour to impact, in five minutes…and counting…" she set the computer to display the clock for everyone's benefit on the viewscreen.

Harry took a deep breath to settle his nerves. For the past day or so he had been doubting himself in being as 'uninvolved' in the mission as he was. Part of him had wanted to just beam himself to the _Achilles_, summon the Asgard and simply tow the damn thing out of harms way. But Thor and Heimdall had drilled one very crucial lesson into his mind from day one…to do everything for and save people who are less advanced from suffering and death is not necessarily a good thing, for it was in the struggle to survive that one truly learned and advanced forward and grew. It was a rather difficult thing to balance, the morality that all sentient life is sacred and must be protected vs. allowing the struggle to ensue to allow growth. Both were concepts that Harry knew even the Ancients had struggled to come to terms with.

"One hour to impact in one minute…" reported Anderson, pushing buttons around her and they could hear the deep whine of the Hyperdrive starting to spool up…Harry found it impressive how she knew where every button was by sheer memory alone, due to the fact that she was wearing the visor helmet. "Thirty seconds…"

The Hyperdrive's noise went even higher and Harry winced in reflex and placed his hands over his ears to buffer it.

"10…9…8…7…6…5…4…3…2…1…engaging." Anderson pushed forward on her left control.

Prometheus was barely two hundred meters from the asteroid surface (to reduce the size of the Hyperspace window needed) and ahead of the two; the blue marble of Earth loomed ever closer. A massive cloud of coherent purple energy formed between the asteroid and Earth…subspace took over and with a great gulp swallowed both ship and asteroid…

…on the other side of Earth a mirror effect of the scene a few moments ago was taking place…

From another massive Hyperspace window…the ship rode out the asteroid back into normal space.

"We're there, navigational computer confirms!" gushed Williamson, as the lights came back on from the massive power drain. The Bridge cheered in victory.

"Well done, everyone!" said Ronson, patting Anderson on her shoulder.

Harry breathed a sigh of relief and walked over to the Sensor station and ran an orbit analysis of the asteroid. Williamson noticed as the cheering and congratulating died down and the crew returned to their stations. Harry grinned in amusement as Williamson saw the results and promptly began gaping like a fish and staring at Harry with ill-disguised awe. "That's…that's…how?"

"Elementary subspace field geometry, I made a tweak when no one was looking," said Harry with a nonchalant shrug. Williamson wasted no time in summoning Ronson and Sam. After seeing what Harry had done they could only blink and look rather stupid as they tried to comprehend it.

"Are you nuts?" asked Ronson promptly.

"Hey, if the Goa'uld want to throw a huge lump of Naquadah our way, why not make use of it," he said grinning unabashedly.

And so it was that Earth had a once in a lifetime cosmological event…it gained a second moon.

_A/N: Teeheehee, I can imagine how Anubis is fuming with steam coming out of his ears at this failure (not that he has ears) and not only that, he hands Earth more Naquadah on a platter. Hope you like my Prometheus. Made it much more believable and realistic, but not too much so. To give you an idea of scale, take the Sears Tower in Chicago and then you have an idea of its size. _


	24. Chapter 24

_**Chapter Twenty-Four – Disclosure**_

The DC-10 touched down about fifteen minutes early due to the favorable winds. Renato Cardinal Angelo was pleased enough to think through an appropriate prayer of thanksgiving. A longtime member of the Vatican's diplomatic service, he was accustomed to long flights, but that wasn't quite the same as enjoying them. He wore his red- "cardinal"- and black suit that was actually more akin to an official uniform, and not a conspicuously comfortable one at that, despite the custom tailoring that came from one of Rome's better shops. One of the drawbacks to his clerical and diplomatic status was that he'd been unable to shed his suitcoat for the flight, but he'd been able to kick off his shoes, only to find that his feet had swollen on the flight, and getting them back on was more difficult than usual. That evoked a sigh rather than a curse, as the plane taxied to the parking slot. The senior flight attendant ushered him to the forward door and allowed him to leave the aircraft first.

He was met at the end of the mobile staircase attached to the aircraft by a mid-sized man wearing the dark blue uniform of the United States Air Force. He only had a passing familiarity with the rank system of the American military, but the oak leaves on the shoulders told him the man was a Major and the single row of colorful adornment on the left chest showed him that the military man in front of him was more an administrator than a combat veteran.

"Your Eminence," greeted the man, offering a salute, "Welcome to the United States, I am Major Paul Davis, I will be your escort for today." The Major kept his head slightly bowed towards the Papal Nuncio and it allowed Angelo to make the correct deduction towards the religion he practiced; he offered him his right hand. The Major kissed the ring on it and stood erect for the first time.

"It's a pleasure to be here," said Angelo, meaning it only in terms of the country he was in, though his presence at Andrews Air Force base aroused somewhat different feelings. Cardinal Angelo did not much care for the military of any country, though they performed sadly necessary duties in this day and age.

The Major waved to a small group of men dressed in black suits with dark sunglasses covering their eyes and the cords of earpieces sticking from their ears. They were standing around two nearby-parked limousines. They moved with assured precision of training and entered the vehicles while two remained to open the door for Angelo.

"How was your flight, Eminence?" asked Davis politely.

"Lengthy but not unpleasant," replied Angelo, diplomats had to act as though they loved flying, though even the flight crews found journeys of this length tiresome. He had come all the way directly from Rome as the President of the United States had made a direct phone call to the Pope a few weeks ago and asked for a direct representative to attend a meeting where an issue of global significance was to be discussed.

Personally, Angelo thought it something to do with the truly amazing astronomical event not a few weeks ago; where a second moon had suddenly appeared in the night sky. NASA had quickly released a statement that it had actually been a rogue asteroid that had been snagged into a roughly elliptical high orbit by Earth's gravity…that it had not impacted on the planet was being hailed as 'a miracle' by NASA.

Angelo gave thanks to God every day for not sending humanity the way of the dinosaurs after he had seen the news report in Rome. The close call however was having some repercussions though. NASA and every other space agency in the world was asking for a more heavy funding commitment to be pored into space, and their voices were being backed many ordinary people around the globe, as they too realized how close they had come to planetary Armageddon. Then there was the extremist reaction; hailing that the Apocalypse was upon them…that the Book of Revelations was coming to fruition…a few cult mass suicides had also been discovered…to name but a few…however the incidents were trailing off as it readily became apparent that no other cataclysms were occurring.

He sat in the backseat of the comfortable vehicle and Major Davis sat next to him only after removing his brimmed hat. The door closed and immediately the two cars sped off along the designated road space on the massive flat runways of the Air base.

"Eminence," said Major Davis, "I just want to apologize for the discreetness of your arrival, in the Military we don't underestimate the resourcefulness of our news media."

"Is there a reason you can give me for the secrecy?" asked the Cardinal.

"All I can say Eminence for the moment, is that you are not the only statesman at this meeting," said Davis with an apologetic look on his face. "All will become clear once we arrive at the Pentagon."

"A highly secret meeting of world leaders," murmured Angelo to himself in Attic Greek. Such an event had not really happened since the meeting of the Big Three; Roosevelt, Churchhill and Stalin…and that had been to decide a mutual course of action for fighting the Axis Powers during World War 2. It rang all sorts of alarm bells in the highly educated mind of the Cardinal.

It took a total of thirty-eight minutes of moving through the beltways and highways to finally reach the Pentagon; the administrative center of the most powerful military in the world. Incidentally it was also the building with highest capacity of office space anywhere on the planet. It had five floors above ground and two basement floors and twenty six thousand personnel called it their place of work both military and civilian.

Angelo could only see the southern face of the building from out the window and the Potomac River beyond and even the white obelisk of the Washington Monument further away, until the cars eventually turned into the parking areas and roads that snaked around the building. They passed numerous security checkpoints where Angelo had to show his Diplomatic Passport…finally they turned right on a road that seemed to lead directly into the Pentagon itself. Until the Cardinal realized they were actually going through a tunnel that probably led into the basement floors.

The darkness outside the cars was absolute and they slowed down to a stop.

"Your Eminence," said Major Davis, "we are about to undergo a scan of the cars, standard procedure for anything going in this way, it's completely harmless but very bright. I advise you close your eyes."

"Very well," said Angelo eventually, considering that the Americans were being overly paranoid; these were their own vehicles after all. He closed his eyes and at that moment he felt and saw a bright white light even through his closed eyelids unlike anything he had ever experienced. It felt as if it had resonated throughout his entire body and then just as quickly left.

"We're clear," reported the Secret Service driver. Angelo opened his eyes as he felt the car moving again and just as quickly stop and the engine switch off. The door at his side was opened by the driver and with a grunt he climbed out and regarded the large area around him. Numerous other limousines were parked neatly in a large room with a gleaming metallic construction and black obsidian floors. The car entrance had seeming sealed itself was a solid metal door. The air was resounding with the hum of machinery.

"This way, Eminence," said Davis, guiding them to a nearby door, while the Secret Service agents remained behind. The door parted automatically at their approach with a soft sound and they walked into a long lit curving corridor with numerous other doors dotted along it. The interior and architecture was not something Angelo had ever expected to find underneath the Pentagon, geometric shapes were everywhere and the lights came from some of these geometric fixtures to bathe everything in an almost eerie blue glow. Despite this, everything combined to form a strange beauty to his eyes.

It was driven from his mind when Major Davis stopped at a rather larger door and after waving his hand over a blue light next to the door (no doubt a sensor of some kind) the doors parted with a hiss of air. The room beyond was large and circular with numerous soft leather chairs with a small desk ergonomically blending into it arranged in a similar narrower circle. At one end, the circle was interrupted to allow a large plasma television screen to be visible to all those seated in the chairs. Each attendee had a small plaque on their desk showing their country, title, and name.

The din of conversation that had been in the room by its occupants had stilled for a moment to see who entered the room and promptly resumed when they realized who Angelo was.

"Over here, Eminence," said Davis and gestured to an empty chair in the circle, in which Angelo sat after Davis pulled it out for him. This finally allowed Angelo to see his other fellow attendees…and Davis wasn't kidding when he said statesmen (the occasional stateswoman as well). Angelo didn't recognize some of them, though he knew many…the Defense Ministers of Britain, Switzerland, France, China…even a few Heads of State; Indonesia, Australia, Canada, South Africa, Saudi Arabia…then he even recognized a few Intelligence Chiefs from MI6, MOSSAD, FSB, CIA…and most amazingly were those seated to his immediate left…the Secretary General of the OIC (Organization of the Islamic Conference), beyond him was the Chairman of the Rabbinical Assembly (Jewish), and further down was the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Angelo knew the Secretary General of the OIC rather well, as they often met when the Pope wanted to convey inter-faith and/or political issues that affected both the Christian and Islamic worlds.

"Greetings Angelo," said Melledin with a nod and a polite smile on his face.

"Greetings," said Angelo, still distracted from his cataloguing of everyone who was gathered, "any idea why we are here?"

"Looking at the Spymasters, Heads of State and Defense Ministers I would say we're here to talk about something that affects the entire planet," said Melledin, but whose face turned thoughtful, "however, our presence and those of our immediate 'colleagues' worries me."

Angelo only nodded in agreement. He then noticed that there were still four empty seats just to the left of the plasma screen. He strained his mid-aged eyes to make out the plaques on those seats and sighed in frustration, pulling out his glasses and putting them on.

"Age is catching up with us, my friend," chuckled Melledin, gesturing to his own rimmed spectacles perched on his nose. Angelo only gave a grunt of agreement and finally managed to make out the names.

The Cardinal's eyebrows rose in astonishment; it seemed the President of United States himself was attending the meeting as well, those who would be seated to his left would be a Major General Hammond, Major Davis and an Ambassador Harry Potter…however the plaque didn't indicate which country he hailed from.

Before Angelo could further ponder this a few soft chimes were heard and the doors swished open to permit entry to the four men who would occupy those chairs. The din of conversation ceased immediately. Angelo had never had an opportunity to meet William Jefferson Clinton but the man did carry a near aura of presence about him that filled a room.

General Hammond struck Angelo at first glance as a no-nonsense man that carried command on his shoulders as naturally as a duck takes to water. The slightly portly General walked with a perfect step and the amount of decoration on his chest meant he had hard experience to back his orders and intentions.

Major Davis walked crisply behind his superior officers but didn't follow them as they sat down, instead he walked over into the large circle and stood next to the plasma screen, holding a complicated looking remote in his hand – no doubt to control the screen itself with.

Ambassador Harry Potter however was a quantity that Angelo couldn't begin to quantify in his mind. It didn't stop him from trying though; the rather muscular man walked with a grace of fluidity that Angelo had often seen coming from Shaolin Monks. And strangely enough he wore intricately cut pure white robes with gold and gray trim that were partially open to reveal intricate tunics and leggings with calf length boots. Angelo couldn't fathom where the style came from. Nor could he understand how a person could have such bright emerald eyes that practically glowed. Angelo thought that according to his name, he probably hailed from England…but a glance at where Tony Blair himself was sitting with the Head of MI6 showed that the Prime Minister was rather startled at the appearance of the Ambassador.

The President of the US stood as everyone finally was at their places and seats and declared, "Ladies and Gentlemen, on behalf of myself and the United States I welcome you to this conference. I thank you for your patience regarding the secrecy, but as the meeting unfolds you will understand its necessity. We are here to decide on a course of action that will affect the lives of every single person on our planet, now and in the indeterminate future. However, to understand the present, we must first be aware of our past. I now call upon Major Paul Davis, United States Air Force, to deliver a briefing on the pertinent facts that require our attention today. Major…" The President nodded and sat down.

"Thank you, Mr President," said Davis. "Ladies and Gentlemen, my briefing begins on events in the 1920s. During the time, we all know that a fervor of archeology was taking place, and the appetite for artifacts dating from Antiquity was at an all time high. Egypt, most especially. Then in 1928 an American funded expedition led by Professor Carl Langford discovered a literal find of a lifetime on the Giza Plateau." The Major thumbed the remote and the plasma flared to life to show a circular arrangement of stones with large numbers of hieroglyphs all over. What intrigued Angelo was the angular symbols in the center… that didn't conform to anything around it.

"This is what he initially found," said Davis, "and subsequent on site translation showed that it was coverstones and that they were dedicated to the Egyptian sun god Ra. More intriguingly, it said that there was something underneath the stones that belonged to Ra himself. Prof Langford removed the stones and this is what he found buried underneath."

The remote clicked again and a black and white picture of a large thick circular ring easily more than twenty two feet in diameter, that was raised to stand mightily on the desert plain with numerous people standing around it with tether ropes everywhere.

"The circular artifact you see was according the initial translation a 'Doorway to Heaven'," said Davis. Angelo gasped inwardly and a few murmurs amongst the conference members were heard but quieted down quickly. "The scientific analysis of the artifact was baffling to the expedition members. The artifact was one solid piece; it didn't have any apparent constituent parts and was apparently made from a hard black metal at first glance. Something which was way beyond the technical capabilities of the Ancient Egyptians to build. Professor Langford also measured the artifact and determined it as a perfect circle to a degree he couldn't hope to work out in his lifetime."

Angelo digested this carefully…that meant something more than the Ancient Egyptians were at work in that part of the world during the time…another hitherto unknown highly advanced civilization?

"The artifact was brought back to the US for more in depth study. Where attempts to understand its composition were made, but it was nigh on impossible at the time. No matter what scientists did to try to chip off a piece of it for elemental and chemical analysis, it never budged or broke. They even detonated a stick of TNT against it and it barely left a scorch mark."

The plasma screen changed to show a grainy color picture typical of the 30s and 40s of the artifact sitting in a large hanger on its side with various white lab coated scientists around it. Then it changed to show two close-ups.

"On the left you will see that the artifact is marked with the strange angular symbols that match no known written language of the era, there is 39 of them all arranged along an inner ring…and it matches the symbols on the coverstones…7 of them. Research on the artifact was stopped when funding dried up and no more progress was made."

The screen showed a slightly better color picture of the artifact on its side again within a military concrete environment.

"However, during World War 2 it was started again as one of many secret projects of the time aimed at ensuring Allied victory. It was here that some more progress was made in divining the function of the artifact. They discovered that by applying a sufficient electrical current to the artifact they could turn the inner ring manually and that when you aligned the symbols with the upper chevron and applied a burst of power that the nine chevrons you see lit up and a single one would remain lit as long as a steady current was maintained."

A black and white film was now played on the screen of men standing on ladders and turning the artifact's inner ring by hand and it showed how the chevrons would move. A ripple of astonishment and wonder passed through the conference. Angelo was amazed already. An artifact dating back to Ancient Egypt that utilized electricity!

"The experiments with the artifact continued until an 'apparent' accidental generator explosion caused the death of one of the project members, Dr Ernest Littlefield. I call it apparent because the research team either failed to understand what actually happened or didn't want to be held accountable for Littlefield's 'death'. This is what happened."

The screen showed the artifact now except there was a 'big' difference. Inside the circular ring was a wall of shimmering water that rippled with a near ethereal bright light. Angelo couldn't see how it could actually be water though…water didn't stand upright against gravity…yet the artifact was clearly achieving this somehow! The next scene showed a bright-eyed young man with glasses being fitted in old copper diving gear and oxygen feed lines trailing along to a generator and compressor. Angelo had to admire the courage of the man…here he was preparing to walk into an artifact that was by all appearances a doorway to heaven. The next scene showed him walking towards the vertical wall of water and going through…the camera rocked and next the wall of water suddenly disappeared, cutting the oxygen lines…and Littlefield was nowhere to be found.

"The research was again stopped after the accident, everything was classified and confined to archives. Those involved in the incident believed Littlefield dead. With the end of World War 2 the impetus for further experimentation on the device and its mysteries ended. However, the fiancé of Dr Littlefield and daughter of Professor Langford, Catherine, continued to petition successive administrations for research to be continued, in the hopes of finding out what happened."

"In 1990, Catherine finally succeeded, and was made head of a research team under Air Force jurisdiction. With the advent of the IT age, Cray Supercomputers were harnessed and further metallurgical analysis with mass spectrometers was carried out. It was determined that the element that the device was constructed out of didn't fit into the current Periodic table. Structural testing showed that the device was as impervious to harm as it was back in 1928. High powered lasers, nuclear detonators, didn't do a thing."

Angelo frowned as a clear conclusion began to build in his mind as to the device's origin. The screen now showed modern high color video of the giant ring clamped to superconductors and massive power feeds running from it. The inner ring began to spin and finally stopped…the chevron flexed and lit up…the ring began to spin again, like a massive combination lock. It continued until it six chevrons were lit up…but something was wrong, the area shook as if a small-localized earthquake was occurring.

"The research team using trial and error over a period of four years managed to build a computer program that could control the device's inner ring. They 'dialed' the symbols on the coverstones but met with frustration when they couldn't identify the seventh symbol. Which was when Catherine Langford turned to this man for help…" the screen showed a photo of a rather academic looking yet handsome young man with thin glasses… "Dr Daniel Jackson, a prodigy in language, mythology and ancient cultures with numerous degrees and doctorates to his name. He held very controversial views on the true reasons behind the emergence of civilization in Antiquity and contended that a very advanced civilization was responsible for this…he was laughed out of the Academic community, but Catherine saw his lecture as promising to her work…as essentially she had proof that he was right."

Angelo looked around to see the rather incredulous yet astonished looks that were beginning to develop on the conference attendees' faces… they were also clearly developing the same conclusion, that Major Davis was slowly but surely working towards.

"Dr Jackson, worked in Cheyenne Mountain on the coverstones and the device for two weeks before he reported that he had made a breakthrough. The mysterious symbols that are on both coverstone and device were in fact…star constellations…"

The screen now showed a complex symbol on the device…and how it perfectly lined up with the Aquarius constellation. A murmur of amazement swept through the conference.

"…he further posited that the six symbols referred to a location in space…to chart any course in a three dimensional plain you need six points of reference to calculate your position…" the screen showed a beautiful rendering of the Galaxy, that zoomed in and a cube was highlighted with six points… "the seventh symbol represents the point of origin…in this case…Earth." Another point on the Orion arm of the Galaxy was highlighted with a caption to indicate Earth's location and a red line was drawn from it to meet the cube.

"The device was finally renamed to what it truly is…a Stargate. As long as there is another Stargate in another location in the Galaxy…we can activate it…and people can walk through the one we have on Earth and within seconds cross vast interstellar distances to walk out onto another planet."

The screen now showed the 'Stargate' in full high definition video, as it burst to life and a group of four people walked up a metallic ramp and without pausing went through the rippling 'water' without flinching. The water vanished with a flash and the people were gone…yet clearly there was nowhere they could've gone…a wall was right behind the Stargate.

Angelo blinked…it felt like his mind had suddenly taken a backseat and said 'Sorry pal, you're on your own on this one!'. A look around showed similar expressions on everyone else except for the Americans, who were looking dead serious.

The President now stood again and said, "I understand your predicament right now. I remember vividly how I felt when fully briefed myself on what my country's Air Force achieved. Right now you can't believe it, because it's seems right out of the realms of science fiction…well I give you my solemn word that it is science fact. For the past five years the US Air Force in conjunction with select civilian consultants have been exploring the Galaxy through use of the Stargate. And we will all see the Stargate itself in action…before this conference ends. We will now have a fifteen-minute break where refreshments will be served. Thank you."

8888888888888888888888888888

"What do you think?"

Angelo gave a deep sigh over the small plate he held in his hands in which a variety of snacks were piled from the buffet table that had been wheeled in.

"Honestly, Melledin, I think its amazing, fantastic…and terrifying. The idea that we already can and are moving amongst the stars its…"

"Overwhelming," said the man from Saudi Arabia.

"Yes."

"I, however, am waiting for the other shoe to drop," said Melledin with a sarcastic grin.

"Oh?"

"You don't think the Americans would do this 'disclosure' if they weren't in over heads with something? This Stargate…is not only means for exploration, but a boon for knowledge I believe, it's a valuable asset, probably the most valuable strategic asset on this planet at the moment…you can't tell me that these politicians aren't planning to wrangle over who has possession of it. Since it can be argued that the benefit of the Stargate must go to all humanity, not just the Americans."

His argument reminded Angelo why he respected Melledin so much, as the Muslim man had an education and intelligence to rival his own.

"You're probably right," sighed Angelo. "I'm worried though about the true reason why we religious men were brought in."

"You think the Americans have discovered something 'out there' that would result in a crisis of faith?"

"It's a possibility," admitted Angelo, "most likely I think they are worried about the fallout if and when this new 'reality' we are in becomes public knowledge. They probably see us as a means of assuaging the public in general."

"But who's going to assuage us?" asked Melledin with a chuckle, looking at the Archbishop and the Rabbi conversing rather intently.

The soft chime again resounded through the room and everyone returned to their seats as the Americans sat down in theirs. Angelo brought his plate with him, the leftover snacks still unfinished.

President Clinton stood again, "Now that we've been fed and watered somewhat I turn this briefing over to Ambassador Harry Potter. His credentials and who he is an Ambassador of will become known to you as his briefing continues…Ambassador?"

"Thank you Mr President," said Potter and he stood and walked over to the screen while Major Davis took his seat. "Ladies and Gentlemen, a pleasure to meet all of you," he said in a steady even voice, "I am here to tell you of what and who is out there in the Galaxy and even beyond." Angelo felt his heart begin to hammer somewhat faster as his imagination brought forth images of the movie 'War of the Worlds', 'Star Wars' and numerous others, of aliens and creatures beyond imagination.

"In the five years of the Stargate Program we have made friends, allies, and unfortunately, inevitably we have made enemies. I will begin with our enemies so we can get worst out of the way." Potter nodded to the screen beside him and it changed to show a picture of…a snake…no, a snake did not have mandible sharp exterior claws nor such strange crystalline eyes. "This, Ladies and Gentlemen, is called a Goa'uld. It's a parasitic species that attaches itself to any humanoid's spinal chord and extends neural probes into the brain of its host…essentially possessing the affected person outright and controlling his or her actions, subsuming their will completely." The screen changed to show a virtual diagram of the creature twirling itself around a spinal chord. Angelo felt a twinge of horror start creep up his spine at the mere thought of it.

"About eight to ten thousand years ago the Goa'uld were primarily in hosts native to their own planet, a reptilian humanoid, the Unas, but these hosts had massively strong immune systems and after successive generations of possession the Unas were beginning to grow resistant to implantation. So the Goa'uld traveled amongst the stars and through the Stargate system…and managed to find Earth. There a Goa'uld found our ancestors and leapt from his Unas host to a young Egyptian boy. This Goa'uld decided to pass himself off as the deity's they worshiped as a means to gain power and fashioned himself after the sun god, Ra."

"Where Ra, began, others of his race followed and soon the entire Egyptian pantheon was represented in the flesh. As far as we have been able to discover, some of the Incan, Greek, Celtic, and Japanese pantheons were also impersonated."

"Earth was the center of Ra's domain in the Galaxy, but the Goa'uld were not happy with just Earth, so they took numerous of our ancestors through the Stargate to other worlds to be used as slaves, hosts and even warriors. Walking through the Stargate to these worlds today is like walking into the past, this Galaxy is full of people descended from Earth."

Angelo felt amazed and sick at the same time.

"The Goa'uld took the strongest humans they could find as well, mostly from Africa genetically engineered them into a subservient warrior race…the Jaffa." The screen changed to show a tall thick muscled dark man wearing a type of metallic armor and neckpiece with a type of tall bulbous staff. "The weapon you see him carrying is generally known as a 'Staff' a Jaffa is trained to handle it with lethality in a close quarter fight and for long range work in the tip is an emitter that fires a directed energy weapon. Notice on his right arm is slung another hand held weapon, called a 'Zatnickatel' or 'Zat gun' it fires a coiling pulsed electrical discharge that can stun a person into unconsciousness with a single shot, kill with a second consecutive, and vaporize with a third. The armor that a Jaffa wears is also impervious to standard ammunition that Earth's armies use according to the Geneva Convention. Armor Piercing and Shredder ammunition is required to pierce the armor."

"The various Goa'uld have entire armies of Jaffa at their command and dominate most of the Galaxy." The screen showed a political outlay of the Galaxy with the majority colored in an angry red to represent the Goa'uld.

Angelo was sure he must have been blanching.

"Next we have their primary air and space superiority fighter, called a Death Glider," said Potter and the screen changed to show a black curved C-shaped fighter from above and the side. "It has two large directed energy weapons at each wing and can outfly and maneuver any standard terrestrial aircraft, mainly due to the fact that G-forces are not an issue for the Glider. They don't have missiles for long range engagement, though."

"Then we have the Al'kesh," said Potter, and the screen showed the large flat teardrop shaped craft, "basically the B-52 of the Goa'uld, only more versatile and can travel at over five hundred times the speed of light. And before you quote me Einstein, the ship enters another layer of space 'sub space' to avoid the speed limit of light in 'real space'. It has an energy turret on the bottom hull and drops plasma bombs."

The screen changed to show an enormous ship easily five hundred plus meters in width, two hundred in height and looking eerily pyramidal.

"This is the mainstay of the Goa'uld Fleet, the mothership, or Ha'tak, it can carry thousands of Jaffa, hundreds of Gliders, and multiple Al'kesh. It has a powerful energy shield to protect it from harm that can easily withstand standard nukes, and has large ship-to-ship energy cannons that can easily be used to bombard a planet's surface from space."

Angelo started to shake his head, trying not to imagine the Vatican being bombarded out of nowhere by energy weapons.

"Finally, we have the Cargo Ship," a small looking pyramidal craft came into view, "mainly used, as it's name applies, for high value cargo transport, but these little things can turn themselves invisible from most sensors and radar, which allow them free reign for covert operations…but their range is limited as their top speed is generally only five times the speed of light; although there have been major upgrades in speed recently."

"The motives behind the Goa'uld are simply power, evil, a desire to dominate. They will attack and enslave us just because we exist or because we are a potential threat. There is no negotiation with them, we fight to defend ourselves, end of story," said Potter with a hard voice.

"I have just painted you the picture of a dark cloud." Angelo couldn't disagree with that. "Now I will give you the silver lining."

"The Goa'uld are not a unified foe, they are more a Hegemony of Feudal Lords with different parts of the Galaxy divided like a pie between them. They will battle each other for territory and resources. So Earth is not their sole focus or priority."

"I mentioned that we have allies amongst the stars. One of these is a subspecies of Goa'uld, if you will, though they don't like to be called that. The Tok'ra are not parasitic in nature but more symbiotic. I say this, because they take human hosts who are willing to host the Tok'ra, usually these are humans suffering from terminal illness, which the symbiote can cure. The Tok'ra does not subsume the human they share consciousness and memory equally."

Angelo blinked at that. Though the concept of hosting an alien organism was rather repulsive, but his mind flitted to his mother who had died of cancer twenty years ago.

"The Tok'ra are limited in what they can do. They don't have the military resources of the Goa'uld. They are more along the line of spies, infiltrators, manipulators and so forth. They use the feudal nature of the Goa'uld against them."

He spoke of the Jaffa Rebellion and went on to explain the Asgard, the Protected Planets Treaty; the thin black line that kept Earth safe. And that he acted as a representative between the Asgard and Earth. He explained their extra-galactic origin, their limitations in actually policing the treaty.

"At this point I want to pause and qualify this entire briefing with some proof with your own eyes, while you will see the Stargate, I'm sure you all with appreciate this," he said. Angelo felt that the Ambassador's smile was somewhat foreboding. "You believe you are all in a room under the Pentagon…in fact, we are somewhat far away from that location…" he waved his hand and the curved walls behind the screen retracted to reveal…reveal…

Angelo had seen the Earth from space in pictures, and he had never imagined such a beautiful and peaceful sight as he was beholding now. He could see the curve of the horn of Africa and the blue of the Indian Ocean, and a stormy weather front swooping over it. Everyone else had risen in their seats and were staring rather mesmerized at the sight of their home. President Clinton walked towards the 'window' and pushed his hand towards it, only for an electric blue light field to suddenly appear at the threshold.

"No transparent material can survive the speeds the ship we are on can travel," commented Potter lightly. "You are all aboard my starship, the _Achilles_. You were brought here limousine and all once you were underneath the Pentagon through a near instantaneous method of matter-energy conversion, which transported you into my cargo bay."

Angelo could see that Potter had just broken a few peoples minds by what he had just revealed. The Ambassador further did this by waving his hand towards the empty buffet table, which suddenly blossomed with white light and was consumed with it and abruptly vanished.

"And now for some more," he continued, a near musical ringing sang through the air and a white light reappeared, and then there was flash and the buffet table was back, except it was fully stocked again. It took another ten minutes for the hubbub to die down and Potter gave an open floor for questions. Personally, Angelo couldn't find a thing to ask, everything was beginning to overwhelm him. The scope of the information was…beyond words.

For the next half an hour Ambassador Potter fielded questions ranging from under whose authority did the ship fall, its capabilities, the typical things politicians ask. Potter's answer on that left no room for interpretation; "This ship is mine, it doesn't belong to the United States or anyone else. I use it to defend this planet, not a single country on it."

"The SGC and the Air Force have not been sitting on its laurels. We have been fighting the Goa'uld through the Stargate whenever possible in special operations strategic warfare, in conjunction with our interstellar allies. The SGC as its mandate also tries to acquire advanced and new technologies to defend Earth and free the enslaved descendants of our world across the Galaxy. It has been somewhat successful in this regard."

He showed a diagram and picture of a F-302 space superiority fighter, its capabilities and this included a fly-by by the said fighter past the _Achilles_. Two squadrons were already online and patrolling the Solar System. Angelo couldn't help but see how it was similar in overall design to a Death Glider, but was clearly more capable.

Typically this enraged most of the Defense ministers present. The Chinese Minister was most vocal. He complained that this would alter the perceived balance of power between the nations…and all but demanded that the schematics for the F-302 be shared amongst everyone present.

"Silence!" snapped Potter and his eyes became like two ice cold emeralds, his command carried a tone that seemed to insinuate itself into the mind and bypass it altogether. Everyone who was arguing mouth snapped shut and not a peep was heard. "If you had waited for me to finish, you would have heard that the schematics of the F-302 would be handed over and that it will be part of general technology packages you will all receive if you commit to an agreement at the end of this meeting."

"In addition to the F-302, just a few weeks ago, Earth launched its answer to the Ha'tak," said Potter, and at that moment a behemoth of ship came into view, the _Prometheus_. Angelo thought it a fitting name; named after the Greek hero that stole fire from the gods for mankind.

"And before you bellyache any more Minister Li," said Potter with narrowed eyes, glaring at the Chinese Minister. "The _Prometheus_ only has a skeleton crew, there aren't enough qualified people in the US Air Force who can be vetted with Top secret clearance to fly her. She should be crewed by eight hundred. Another purpose of this conference is to get those people…the _Prometheus_ will have an International crew. America can no longer shoulder the financial and resource burden of defending the planet. Therefore the United States is putting a call for you to contribute combat units to the SGC and the growing Earth space fleet."

President Clinton stood and all attention turned to him.

"What the United States is proposing is that a new international scientific and military organization be formed…with NATO as a model. We propose that the Stargate Treaty Organization (STO) be established by this conference. A Supreme council of military, civilian and scientific leaders will lead the STO's strategic decisions. Below the council there will be five divisions; Field Ops: covering all ground forces that work through the Stargate, Fleet Ops: governing the starships and space forces that will be constructed in the future, Science Engineering Division, Medical Core, Intelligence and finally Culture and Religion (CR): to prepare the world for eventual full disclosure of the new reality we face."

"If all of you contribute financially and through the provision of well trained personnel, each of your countries will receive schematics of every piece of advanced military technology we have developed and others. However, if its found that you are misusing it; such as aiming it against other people on this planet…" said Clinton darkly, "well, you saw how the Ambassador made the buffet table disappear…picture that."

Angelo had to hand it to the President; he certainly knew how to use the carrot and stick approach effectively. Clinton nodded to the Ambassador and sat down.

"Thank you, Mr President," he said and snapped his fingers, multiple ringing sounds of the matter-energy transporter were heard and laptops appeared in front of each delegate. "Inside, you will find the technology schematics that was spoken of. You can leave with it today…if you sign the agreement to begin the process of establishing the STO."

"How can we possibly accept that?" asked the Russian delegate. "When we don't even know the fine print of the STO."

"The final treaty will be hammered out by all you fine folks," said Potter. "Its merely a commitment to accept the broad framework of the STO, the specifics are up to you. But be warned, any under the table nonsense and backroom deals to get yourselves a bigger piece of the pie and…" he snapped his fingers and the laptops disappeared and then reappeared. "You get the picture."

Angelo stood looking up at the Stargate within the Spartan concrete environment within Cheyenne Mountain with a sense of humbleness. No, he didn't feel reverence for the device itself, but rather of what was beyond the gate and out there…how utterly small this new perspective on the Universe made him feel. And how all the struggles of the past century seemed insignificant compared to the scale of things out there.

The Conference was winding to a close. After the draft STO agreement had been signed, Major Davis had gone on to recount all the major missions and events that had occurred over the past five years and which Earth had been involved in. It amazed and frightened him; the sheer ingenuity displayed by the people of the SGC in dealing with numerous seemingly unsolvable calamities boggled the mind. Blowing up a star to wipe out an enemy fleet, detonating a specially designed explosive to stop a Black Hole from gulping up the planet, the Earth's second moon was actually a cleverly disguised attack that had been thwarted; it was enough for him to think through a quick prayer for God to give him the strength to cope.

"Penny for your thoughts, Eminence," said a voice at his side. Angelo broke out of his reverie and prayer to see that Ambassador Potter was the owner of the voice.

"I rather doubt that they'd be worth such a small price, Ambassador," said Angelo. The presence of the Ambassador brought up a rather sticky issue, at least it would be for the future CR division. The actual Builders of the Stargates, or as they were colloquially known, the Ancients, and their origins was a contentious issue among the religious delegates at the STO conference and it had been the only item that had been rigorously debated between them. The fact that he was apparently standing right next to a full blooded descendant of the Builders that had been born on Earth was rather disconcerting.

"Quite," said Potter with a grin. "I rather think though that your mind is on the issue of the Second Evolution." Angelo balked, was he that transparent? Potter chuckled. "I am good at reading people, Eminence. But hard proof will be shown to the Holy See, and don't worry about a crisis of faith. I think it will please you to know, that despite the fact that the Ancients believed in science, that they also had a very subtle religion. They believed that the Universe was Infinite and they acknowledged the Creator of that Infiniteness, they were Theists. They however, had little use for sacraments and rites, because of a very traumatic incident in their past where they had to defend themselves against a genocidal crusade that tore their society apart. That experience led them to 'tone down' their religion considerably."

Angelo winced inwardly at that. If there was one thing that had briefly made him ashamed of wearing his Cardinal robes, then it was when he had learned of the Church's own bloody past in inspiring the numerous Crusades to the Holy Land, the Inquisitions and so forth. Those excesses and corruption had led to the Reformation and the creation of the Church of England and Protestantism.

"I myself also believe in God," said Potter, "I pray and meditate but do not follow in any specific 'religion'. No religion has it right or wrong. Because to say otherwise is impossible, if the Universe is Infinite and God created it, therefore God must be beyond Infinite, it follows then that God is utterly beyond human understanding, we try our best, but its like the three blind men touching the elephant…"

"I understand what you are trying to say," said Angelo with his hands held up.

"Good," said Potter his face turning serious and eyes hard as emeralds, "because I would hate to have to evacuate the descendants of the Gatebuilders living out their lives on this planet because they faced another round of Witch hunts."

_A/N: Another foundation chapter, not much happening, but very important for the future. I chose to create Cardinal Angelo and change POV because I wanted to view things from a newcomer perspective and from someone not actually in political power. Harry only knows a general history of his Ancestors (ie. Ori vs Alteran conflict) as he alludes to it here…no specifics. Alteran 'religion' – they had to have some kind of spirituality …ascension has a huge spiritual aspect…as Mckay learned in SG Atlantis. Oops, first paragraph credit goes to Tom Clancy. Sorry, forgot about that one. _


	25. Chapter 25

_**Chapter Twenty-Five – Warrior**_

Area 51 Shipyards

Over the vast expansive voids of the five concealed shipyards was a long catwalk that extended the entire nine hundred meter width of the combined drydocks. Standing pensively on this long catwalk, clad in his shimmering chromesuit, was Ambassador Harry Potter. Lately though, he was rather more of a Teacher or Trainer than any form of diplomat or warrior.

The reason for this was the greatly expanded workforce of Area 51. A few weeks ago the first International civilian engineers and scientists had arrived at the top-secret shipyard facility in accordance with the draft Stargate Treaty Organization framework. The new influx of personnel ranged from the young but bright graduate to the old grizzled and experienced. Harry and other shipwrights (as they called themselves now) that was fresh off getting Earth's first starship, _Prometheus_ into space were each found suddenly assigned a group of 'apprentices' and had to promptly teach them all the hard lessons that were learned with building the _Prometheus_.

Harry was taking a well-earned break from his teaching and escaped his 'apprentices' for a few minutes alone on the catwalk.

He walked along its length slowly leaving the empty Shipyard 1 and Shipyard 2 next to it came into view…in it was the spaceframe of Earth's next starship the _Daedalus._ She was a Destoyer-Carrier (DC) hybrid like her sister ship and had the same dimensions, but she would have integrated Asgard transporters and a more powerful Hyperdrive (since refinements and improvements were being constantly made) and would be equipped with the mark 2 version of the Naquadah Matrix Fusion power plants…which would give it a thirty percent improvement in its energy output over the _Prometheus_.

_Daedalus_ was looking more 'fleshed out' every day as the two hundred strong workforce scoured in and out of the ship.

Shipyards 3 and 4, however, held only the keel and basic spaceframe of the ships, _Odyssey_ and _Apollo_ respectively. Only once all the apprentices were trained to an acceptable level would both ships also have full workforces assigned to them and because of the lessons learned from _Prometheus_, build time for each ship would be reduced to six months, whereas _Prometheus_ had taken two years of trial-error and experimentation.

The funding influx from the STO had also helped matters considerably in terms of not only materiel but also people.

He walked over to Shipyard 5 where the assembly line for the F-302 was hard pressed to turn out the required numbers of fighters that would make the DC ships the mean thing that they were supposed to be. On the books, they were supposed to have 72 F-302s, but there were currently not enough pilots qualified in them to satisfy that requirement. Currently, the _Prometheus_ held Space Squadron 01 (SS-01) or the 'Mongooses' as they liked to refer to themselves, first commissioned when the F-302s were first launched a year ago. While SS-02 (the Tigers) was still based Earth-side and patrolled the Solar System by themselves without aid of a support ship (they would go to _Daedalus_ when she was launched). With advent of the STO it was hoped that the training and recruiting pool would go way up and allow more squadrons to be commissioned, but it was still touch and go as to whether that hope would work out.

Also in Shipyard 5 was an experimental ship that was Area 51s attempt at the Alteran MEV. It had the dimensions of the MEV, but none of the elegance or capabilities of the Alteran built gateships. The concept ship was called 'Gate Shuttle' Harry made a mental note that the name had to be changed before it settled in the minds of everyone.

The 'Gateshuttle' had a silver gray smooth hull and had not only a single forward-looking window but also port and starboard viewports. It had no weapons but did have an excellent sensor suite and utilized Terran produced phase shift technology (retrieved from Nirtii) to become invisible. There were still stability problems in maintaining the phase shift for long periods, but the engineers on the project were confident it could be solved. Also, the integrated Terran Stargate dialing computer built into the pilot's console had a few programming issues; as it had to remotely override the DHD on any planet the ship was on while still using the DHD as a power source.

If the 'Gateshuttle' had to be used now, it would first have to land and someone would have to physically use the DHD to activate the Stargate.

"I thought I would find you here," said a pleasant female voice.

"Sam," greeted Harry, staring at the 'Gateshuttle'. "What are you doing at Area 51?"

"I came to see if you've thrown any temporal restraining fields at your students in frustration yet," she grinned unabashedly.

"Oh, you don't know how much I've been tempted to do exactly that," groaned Harry combing his fingers through his hair. "Getting those preconceived notions of physics out of their heads is like…like…it's just difficult." He floundered for an appropriate metaphor. "It's about the only thing McKay and I agree on, if you can believe it."

Sam blinked in astonishment. McKay and Harry agreeing on anything was truly a first.

"Anyway, all kidding aside, I'm here to get you back to the SGC. Teal'C and Bratac have a proposal they want to present to us."

"Indeed?" said Harry, she nodded. "I'll just have to hand off my apprentices. See you at the front entrance in twenty minutes?"

She nodded and they went their separate ways for the moment.

**SGC – Briefing Room.**

Harry sat back in his chair around the briefing room table with fingers tented under his chin and a rather astonished look of surprise on his face. Teal'C and Bratac, both in the traditional 'casual' robes of the Jaffa, had just delivered the most impassioned proposal that he had ever heard from either of the two warriors. Even going as far as to say that the dye of the Jaffa's deliverance was about to be cast.

Of course, Jack, being whom he was had to make light of every serious situation.

"Deliverance? Do you have any idea what happened to the guys in that movie?"

"I do not," said Bratac with a slight confused frown on his face. Jack sighed and just made shooing motions with hands that they ignore him as the rest of SG1 shared amused looks with each other at their commanding officer's antics.

"Master Bratac, that's a very strong recommendation," said General Hammond cautiously.

"Yes it is," admitted Bratac, "but the rewards of such an alliance would be great."

"Teal'c?" asked Hammond, obviously wanting to know what the younger Jaffa thought.

"Many of our allies have fallen, General Hammond. The Tollan are all but decimated and in hiding, the Tok'ra are weakened and scattered. Kytano offers an army."

Harry considered Teal'C and Bratac's description of the zealous Jaffa leader that had emerged from among the rebel Jaffa. And while such leadership seemed like just what the doctor ordered for the beleaguered and enslaved warrior race, Harry would reserve judgment until he met the man for himself.

"An army that needs our help," pointed out Sam.

"Major Carter, have the Jaffa not helped your cause?" asked Teal'C pointedly.

"Teal'c, please, don't misunderstand me. You and Bra'tac have done more for us than anyone could have asked. I owe you both my life at least a dozen times over. That's not what I'm saying."

"What she's saying is that, if this guy's come to us, he's got to be pretty desperate," said Jack wryly.

"You misjudge yourself O'Neill," said Bratac, "the Tau'ri have come a long way in a short time. Did you not just launch your own first mothership recently?"

"Well, yeah…" said Jack but trailed off not knowing what to say when praise came from the old Jaffa.

"Wait a minute," said Daniel thoughtfully, "I don't think we should underestimate this opportunity. I mean, an army of Jaffa actually challenging the power structure of the Goa'uld. It could be an inspiration to every Jaffa out there. Word of its very existence is a threat to the Goa'uld."

"You don't think that the Goa'uld are just going to sit around and let it happen?" asked Sam sceptically.

"We do not," confirmed Teal'C. "Which makes Kytano's need so great."

"His army is drawn from many different system lords," explained Bratac further, "and more flock to him with each raid he makes. But an army cannot live on courage alone."

"Dr Jackson, what can you tell us about this Imhotep? This is the first I've heard of him," said Hammond curiously. Harry scowled at the mention of the Goa'uld who Kytano was First Prime to.

"Well, during the Third Dynasty in Egypt, Imhotep was credited as being _the_ first pyramid builder. He was later deified among the ancient Egyptians. But, among the Goa'uld, at least as far as I know, he never achieved power of any kind."

"Ambassador, do you have anything to add?"

"Imhotep I only know as once being the companion of Anuk," said Harry, an unpleasant look on his face. "But it was thousands of years ago and she was well shot of him when she achieved System Lord status and he didn't."

"That ego of theirs does it every time," commented Jack sarcastically.

"He was never a System Lord?" asked Hammond ignoring his subordinate.

"Nope, not even close, a minor Goa'uld in every sense of the word," said Harry.

"Which explains how Kytano has managed to survive," said Sam.

"He took out a nobody," grinned Jack.

"Which probably only buys us some time," said Daniel intently, "if we don't help, the Goa'uld will eventually see this as the threat it is."

"Imhotep may have been a minor Goa'uld," qualified Bratac, "but Kytano is a great leader of men. I believe him bold enough to lead his rebel army to victory over those who deny us freedom."

"I've already ordered food and medical supplies prepped for transport," said Hammond, but paused and looked at Harry directly, "what's still in question is what kind of weapons and how many."

Harry eyed Teal'C and Bratac carefully. "You wish for PR7s?"

"They have proven to be formidable in battle," said Bratac with a respectful nod.

"How many do you require?" asked Harry lightly, ignoring the looks of surprise on everyone's faces.

"For several hundred warriors," said Bratac, also looking pleased and surprised that Harry was apparently agreeing.

"On such short notice, it's impossible to equip so many," said Harry shaking his head. "Remember also that they are personalized weapons, only the warrior they are given to may wield it. I will also need to be present to program them."

"Ambassador, perhaps if we send a smaller number of weapons…as a gesture of good intentions," said Teal'C genially.

"Very well, I will arrange it immediately," nodded Harry with an enigmatic smile.

"In that case," said Hammond with a frown, "you all have a go."

Teal'C and Bratac bowed and filed out of the room, the two perceptive warriors had clearly picked up on the sudden mood that had fallen in the room when the Ambassador had acceded to their request.

"Has those rookie scientists at Area 51 you're teaching affected you in any way we should know about?" asked Jack sarcastically.

"I will confess my frustration levels are much higher than they have ever been," admitted Harry with a grin, "but otherwise, no, my mental faculties are normal."

"So you're just gonna give the PR7 away? Just like that?" snapped Jack, flicking his fingers.

"I did design it," said Harry pointedly.

"And the fact that it's a nice tactical advantage of ours that you're also handing over…"

"Isn't Kytano going to be our ally?" asked Daniel with some confusion.

"C'mon, Daniel," said Jack in exasperation, "do you really think that all those rebel Jaffa are true to the cause, and that there are not some that still secretly worship the snakes. We hand a PR7 to one of them and the Goa'uld will be dissecting it the next day."

"Ambassador?" said Hammond, in a tone that said 'explain yourself.'

"I'm wounded Jack, that you think I didn't think of the consequences of this," said Harry with a mock pout. "You should know me better," the pout disappeared and an evil grin formed on his face. "The truth is that the PR7s will soon be replaced with the PR8 AW."

"What?" said Jack blinking. Harry grinned and opened his hand to reveal a small silver circular disc and placing it on the table. It lit up with a bright light and above it in mid-air above the table a hologram appeared. In midair floated what looked like a normal PR7 but had what looked like a small scope attached to the top, from the rear of the weapon a high tensile flexible metallic cord was attached to a form of sleeveless ergonomic body armor colored in the digital diffusing camouflage pattern, another cord emerged from the shoulder of the armor and entered a thin ergonomic helmet, which intriguingly had a transparent eyepiece that hovered just in front of the left eye.

"This is the PR8 AW or Advanced Warfighter, it's not just a weapon, but also an integrated tactical combat information system that blends into the energy dissipating armor you see projected before you," explained Harry, "its equipped with sensors that can detect the electrical conductivity of a heartbeat in a radius of three hundred meters, and if a Darkstar drone is launched can feed a real time map of what it can see into the eyepiece of the helmet. It also allows for unprecedented levels of team interaction, as all the PR8s of an SG team can be linked to each other and what one can detect and see, all will see."

"Cool," said Jack, getting that eager gleam in his eye when he saw a new 'military toy' to play with.

"That's unreal," said Sam, rather amazed. "Sir," she said turning to Hammond, "if we could detect heartbeats at that distance…"

"You'd never be caught unawares or be lured into an ambush," concluded the General, looking impressed and slightly jealous – if only such tech had been available in his day, how many of his late comrades in arms would still be alive?

"In addition," continued Harry, "there's now a multi-spectral visual sensor on the PR8, whose feed can be piped into the eyepiece, meaning that you can poke the weapon around corners and see what awaits you, without exposing yourself. Which would be very handy in those twisting corridors on a Ha'tak."

"What about firepower?" asked Jack.

"The PR8 does give twenty five percent more 'punch' than its predecessor," confirmed Harry. "But now it also modulates the energy bolt, which means you can set it to only stun someone, if you wish."

"When can deployment of it begin?" asked Sam.

"My wife has informed me that she has just finished a production run that would be enough to outfit SGs one through twelve. I can bring them over as soon as we've finished our business with Kytano."

"You have a go," nodded Hammond, apparently not one for looking a gift horse in the mouth, "get moving people."

Harry stood patiently at the edge of the ramp watching the Stargate dial the coordinates of Kel Mah, the current home of Kytano's rebel Jaffa. He double checked his tactical vest and PR7 one last time and watched as a group of airmen lugged the huge silver container that held the PR7s destined for the Jaffa onto the self propelled mobile cargo platform that was already packed with food and medicinal supplies.

Sam was at the controls, while Daniel was also double-checking his own equipment.

Jack finally entered the gate room to join Teal'C, Bratac and Hammond.

"O'Neill, before we leave," said Bratac, as the Stargate engaged, "you should know that some of the Jaffa you are about to meet, you may have met before…in battle."

"Yeah, I've thought of that," said Jack distractedly, putting his brown cap on.

"Jaffa have long memories," said Bratac gravely in warning.

"Well that's all right," said Jack, shrugging it off. "Cause I don't."

Teal'C and Bratac looked at each other with stony faces and their eyes showing their incredulousness at Jack's casual attitude towards something that could be a big problem. Hammond had to hide his own amusement by turning his head away for a moment.

"It's a…joke," said Jack with a frown at their reactions.

"Bratac, let's hope your faith in this man is well deserved," said Hammond.

"I would stake my life on it," said Bratac, and he, Teal'C, Sam, Daniel and the cargo moved forward and disappeared into the subspace path.

"Ours too apparently," said Jack, "let's go Ambassador." Harry nodded and accompanied Jack in step through the event horizon.

The reception on Kel Mah was a rather strange one…silence. A group of rebel Jaffa numbering into the twenties was gathered near the Stargate, some stood with Staff weapons, or Zat guns, most stood with nothing and just stared fixedly at the group of Tau'ri plus Teal'C and Bratac. Harry counted it as a plus that their Staffs were not charged and trained on them.

"I am Master Bratac, of Chulak," declared the old Jaffa loudly, "I have come with warriors of the Tau'ri."

It was at that point that Jack decided to make one of his usual blundering first impressions. He had unlatched his backpack from the overloaded cargo frame and failed to grab it in time to prevent it from falling to the ground.

"Hi guys," he said unabashedly, raising his hand and bent down to rescue his backpack. Harry groaned inwardly…Jack was hopeless.

"**Tek ma tek,**" said Bratac.

Jack of course, needed the translation. Which Daniel provided as 'friends well met'. It was then that a tall Jaffa in armor walked forward who had his own Staff weapon. He was unique in that he wore an actual smile on his face as he approached them, and one who Teal'C recognized.

"Raknor," greeted Teal'C, in friendship.

"Teal'C!" said Raknor in delight and they grasped each other's forearms, "**tek ma tek.**" He then turned to the small crowd of Jaffa, "It was Teal'C who gave me my first taste of freedom!" And said to Teal'C. "It is because of you that I am here. **Tek ma te.**"

"That's a greeting of respect," said Daniel to Jack.

"Okay," said Jack waving Daniel off, "I get it."

"These are among the great warriors of the Tau'ri. Daniel Jackson, Major Carter, their leader Colonel O'Neill, and the bane of many Goa'uld, Tyr. **Tek ma tek**."

"**Tek ma tek**," said Harry hastily, to interrupt any of Jack's witticisms, bowing to Raknor. "**Ta shal chul.**"

"Your compliment is well received," said Raknor, bowing in turn. "You have come to speak with Kytano?"

"We have," confirmed Bratac.

"He's on a mission and will return soon," said Raknor, and pointed to the cargo frame, "what is this?"

"The first shipment of many," said Teal'C with a grin.

"We've brought food, supplies and…" said Jack and gestured to silver crate, Harry took his cue and opened it, revealing it to be filled with thirty stacked PR7s, "…weapons."

The reaction was pretty much what Harry expected from the assembled Jaffa. There was no way that you would, after spending a lifetime of mastering Staff and Zat, suddenly be enthused of exchanging it for something different and strange…even if it was 'technically' more effective. Teal'C and Bratac were looking at their brethren in puzzlement, which was also not surprising, as both had seen the results of PR7s more so than their fellow Jaffa.

"What?" said Jack with a frown at Raknor's disappointed expression.

"Your gesture is appreciated," said Raknor sincerely, "but they had hoped that you would bring staff weapons, zat'nik'tels…true weapons."

"'_True'_ weapons?" asked Jack archly with a raised eyebrow.

"It does not matter, friend," said Raknor quickly, "come, see how our numbers are growing."

About five hundred meters away from the Stargate was a clearing that held a rather ramshackle camp with numerous large canopied tents; there were also areas that had been set aside to accomplish the daily chores of living, fireplaces, tables to prepare and eat food, there was also a nearby convenient stream that was used as a source of fresh water. Jaffa men, women and children were bustling about to and fro. Most prominent of course, was the sparring circles and workout areas where the active Jaffa warriors were performing an interesting martial arts discipline that Harry had never seen before.

"You see, O'Neill?" said Bratac, pointing to the various Jaffa who clearly had different tattoos on their foreheads, "these Jaffa were once sworn mortal enemies, each serving different false gods. Now they work in harmony."

"Our numbers grow with each successful campaign," explained Raknor.

"And you just trust each new arrival to your cause? Well…I'm just saying isn't it possible some of these Jaffa are still loyal to their gods and are acting as spies within your ranks?" asked Sam reasonably.

"A warrior of Kytano's experience can see within the very soul of another Jaffa and know his allegiance," explained Bratac passionately.

"Its kind of a leap of faith, isn't it?" asked Jack skeptically.

"A Jaffa is a very good reader of body language and the eyes," explained Harry astutely gesturing with his own finger to his eyes. "The intent of a person can be read in them. As a martial artist you need to be good at reading others otherwise you will be easily defeated. Deception and falsehood can be read in such a manner."

"The Ambassador speaks truly," nodded Bratac with a satisfied grin.

They approached a group of Jaffa training by performing extremely difficult acrobatic kata's of high leaps, flowing kicks and forceful arms movements.

"This discipline is called Mastaba," said Raknor, "all of Imhotep's Jaffa was required to master it. And now we require it of ourselves."

The group stopped in front of the main sparring circle where two Jaffa had just finished. A new pair took their place; one of European descent and another with Asian features, both were muscled but were not as overly big as Teal'C and they were quick on their feet. They picked up wooden replicas of the Staff weapon and began to spar. Teal'C walked over to the weapons rack that held the replicas and picked one up for himself.

"**Bashaak**? Training staffs?" he asked curiously.

"Out of necessity, Teal'C," said Raknor gravely, "there are not enough staff weapons for all."

In the meantime, the two sparring Jaffa was going at it heavily. Harry saw they were putting their all into the blows they traded, in some cases even at the expense of balance. Bratac saw this as well and shouted a chiding warning at them.

"You overcommit!"

The two Jaffa stopped after a moment in their duel, and seeing the elder Jaffa addressing them, came over hurriedly and bowed in respect.

"This young warrior's name is Tara'C," said Raknor, pointing to the Euro Jaffa.

"**Tek ma te**, Master," said Tara'C.

"If you would allow me," said Bratac, holding his hands open for the Bashaak. Tara'C handed it over without pause and the old Jaffa walked into the circle and immediately launched into a graceful kata with it. Harry was almost reminded of how Dumbledore could look and be old but still retain great strength and speed, despite age.

"The weapon is balanced but the warrior is not," explained Bratac as he performed the fluid kata, "when one overcommits, one becomes vulnerable to counter-attack. When one achieves balance in combat, one will survive to achieve balance in life." He tossed the Bashaak back to Tara'C and walked out of the circle.

"Forgive me, master," said Tara'C, looking slightly confused, "but Kytano teaches that one must strike with single-minded purpose towards victory without regard for one's survival."

Harry frowned at that little bit of philosophy. That was even more martial than what he was used to from a Jaffa…Bratac's face turned woody and yet intrigued and said to Tara'C, "Show me."

Tara'C and his sparring partner returned to the circle and began to fight…and to Harry's mind it brought a whole new meaning to the Roman training philosophy 'Their sparring are bloodless battles, and their battles are bloody spars." Except, they had clearly not heard about the bloodless part. They both sparred with a single-minded ferocity. Putting everything into their attacks, parries and blocks. At one point, Tara'C managed to get under his partner's guard and pressed his advantage without mercy, managing to hit his opponent twice in the ribs.

"Hey, easy, easy, easy," winced Jack with a frown.

"Leave them, O'Neill," said Bratac dismissively.

Tara'C raised his staff after managing to force his opponent to his knees, clearly intent on knocking him into unconsciousness. Harry had to grab the back of Jack's tac vest to keep him from interfering and the staff came down and the Jaffa literally spun in the air before coming to land on his side, clearly in the land of nod.

"What are you doing?" snapped Jack at Harry, ripping himself out the latter's grip. "They were beating the crap out of each other…"

"His symbiote will heal him," said Harry simply. "A Jaffa can take a lot more punishment, Colonel, and still bounce back. If you had interfered, you would have insulted Tara'C, and he could rightfully have challenged you to a **Bashaak** duel."

"Kytano teaches that we must be willing to die as he is if we are to be free," said Raknor solemnly.

"Well, if you all die, you won't have an army. That's kinda…ouch!" he winced and bounced on one foot, as Harry had stepped rather hard on the other one to interrupt him in what no doubt would've been a very undiplomatic statement.

"I respect the Jaffa and their ways," said Harry with a nod, "but in this case my…colleague…has touched upon a concern that I feel is valid. Tactics and strategies that have no concern for the survival of your warriors will lead to a rapid depletion in your numbers. At which point you will cease to be effective as a fighting force. It is only our concern as possible future allies that leads me to raise this point."

"Indeed," said Bratac with a smile, "this approach to the art of war is new to me as well, yet I believe we can reconcile the philosophies.

"Kytano returns!" came a loud shout from across the camp.

Tara'C, and his fellow Jaffa, all stopped what they were doing and rushed away from the sparring circles. Along the path to the camp, the entire Jaffa contingent had lined up and was cheering wildly for the returning warriors led by Kytano himself. Kytano was a bald dark skinned man, dressed in Jaffa armor and while a head shorter than Teal'C walked with a grace that screamed that he was an accomplished martial artist. His obsidian eyes scanned the crowd and he smiled in satisfaction.

"You know," said Jack to Sam, Daniel and Harry, "we never get this when we come home."

Kytano raised his arms to signal the cheering to subside and that he wished to speak.

"Jaffa, on this day," he said powerfully and with great charisma, "three of our warriors have fallen in the name of freedom. They fought fiercely against Thoth's forces. And they died bravely and have secured for themselves a place in Kheb. So too, have they strengthened our ability to fight back against the enemy."

A large Goa'uld cargo case that was being carried by the returning warriors was opened and revealed a cache of Zatnickatels. One of the Jaffa took one and raised it victoriously in the air and another round of cheers waved through the crowd.

"_True_ weapons," scoffed Jack to himself. He obviously thought that a Zat was not actually a truly effective weapon of war. An opinion that Harry mirrored, at best it was a PDW (personal defense weapon), not a frontline weapon.

Kytano soon noticed the newcomers and visitors to his camp and approached them. He addressed Bratac first and greeted the Jaffa Master first by clasping forearms.

"**Tek mal tiac**," said Kytano warmly.

"**Tek ma te**," said Bratac bowing in respect, no doubt in deference to the leadership qualities he sensed in the man and his accomplishments in uniting such a large rebel army.

"You flatter me, Master Bratac," said Kytano with amusement. He turned to Teal'C and greeted him in the same manner, however, he said, "**Ya duru arik kek onac**. I honor he, who would kill his god. And to his brethren in the Tau'ri; slayers of Ra, Hathor, Setesh, Heru'ur, Sokar, Chronus, Apophis, Osiris, and Zipacna."

"It is an honor to meet you, **Jomo **Kytano," said Harry stepping forward and bowing. "I am Ambassador Tyr of the Tau'ri. Next to me is Colonel Jack O'Neill, leader of SG1. Then we have Major Sam Carter and Doctor Daniel Jackson."

"Tyr and O'Neill," said Kytano, bowing back, "names cursed by every Goa'uld. Imhotep himself declared your days were numbered."

"Well, that's fine," said Jack, seeing that Harry had smoothed first impressions, "as long as it's a really big number."

Kytano chuckled in appreciation at the irony, "because of you, the armies of these fallen System lords now swell our rebellion. We owe you thanks."

"**Tek ma tek**, Kytano," said Jack with a slight nod of the head. Daniel and Sam looked in surprise at Jack's perfect use of the greeting, and he glanced at them with a satisfied smile. "We also offer an alliance."

"Then you are most welcome," said Kytano with a smile.

"We also offer food and supplies for your people," said Daniel, ever the humanitarian.

"Glorious!" declared the leader, and the Jaffa cheered as well.

"And of course…weapons!" said Jack.

"Ah…I have heard only rumor of these," said Kytano, looking at the PR7s carried by SG1 with interest. "All I have heard say is that they are powerful. But most of our warriors have trained since child to battle with staff and zatnickatel, you must prove that this weapon is of worth to them."

"Carter, I think a little demonstration is in order then," said Jack with a grin at her.

The Jaffa did have a rather crudely assembled firing range. It was little more than a eighty yard long clearing next to a forest. A wooden frame had been erected at the end and three thick tree logs were hung from it. An interested crowd of mixed Jaffa stood arrayed around the firing line. Sam, Jack and Harry were standing on the firing line itself. Sam would be the one to do the actual firing, since she was the best marks'woman' on SG1 – outshooting Jack by six average points on X ring target shots. Kytano, Raknor and Bratac were just a few steps behind them.

The firing range itself exposed a rather critical tactical weakness in the Jaffa…at least from the Terran point of view. Long-range marksmanship to the Jaffa was a concept that just did not exist, or if it did, it was frowned upon, as it wasn't really a 'true' test of honor or skill against your opponent. The Goa'uld would discourage such training as well…since it wouldn't do to train your warriors in such a way that, if they rebelled, could lead to them taking you out from a distance of more than three hundred yards.

As such, the Jaffa acted as if an army from the Napoleonic era (since a staff weapon was really only effective at a range of just over fifty meters – as the ball muskets were) had been trained in the guerilla formation tactics of the Viet Cong.

"This weapon is called a PR7," said Sam, unhooking the bulbous power pack from her weapon to demonstrate and reattaching it, "it carries a plasma power pack which will enable you to fire sixty plasma bolts with a rate of fire of nine hundred bolts per minute."

"Who here can handle a staff weapon?" asked Jack seriously.

"Raknor is among our best marksmen," said Kytano with a grin.

"Carter, that target, what sixty-seventy yards down?"

Sam, being the former pilot that she was, appraised the distance with a single glance.

"Yeah, give or take, sir," she agreed.

"Fire away, son," said Jack to Raknor, gesturing with his hand towards the log targets down the range.

Raknor stepped up to the firing line, while the others moved away and primed his staff weapon; that sizzling electric sound resounded throughout the area and he brought the weapon fluidly up and settled it on his shoulder, and sighted down the length of the long weapon…it looked slightly awkward. Raknor fired three times in quick succession. The swooping sound of the orange bolts screamed down the range and hit the central log…causing two carbon-scorched craters to appear in the thick wood.

"Well done**, Ta'I kree**," said Kytano.

"Two out of three, not bad," said Jack mildly, "Carter?"

"The female?" said Kytano in surprise, and a bit of astonishment. And there was another difference between the Terran and Jaffa art of war; the former recognized the value of the female as a warrior (as the Soviets had so successfully first demonstrated in World War 2; by having women as Snipers in the urban battlefields).

"Major Carter is a formidable warrior," said Teal'C neutrally, but taking a stand for his teammate. Teal'C had seen this first hand, and he had seen many Tau'ri women in the armed forces of Earth, contributing just as much, if not more so, than their male counterparts in certain roles.

"Yes, of course," said Kytano, letting the matter drop.

"Actually," said Jack, "hold up a second." He then proceeded to ask a Jaffa standing downrange to push the log and make it swing, to even increase the difficulty more. The Jaffa hurriedly got out of the way. "When ready, Major," said Jack warmly to Sam, slapping her on the shoulder and walked away. Sam checked her weapon settings one last time, settled her stance and aimed the PR7.

She began by showing a full auto burst of fire. A near continuous line of blue bolts poured out of the weapon with a low whining sound. It looked almost like she had drawn a blue line of power from her weapon to touch the log that swept back and forth. The thick log abruptly splintered and the lower half of it fell to the ground. She ceased fire the moment it happened, and turned back to the crowd a small grin of nonchalance on her face. The reaction of everyone else was a sight to see. Kytano was shocked and failing miserably to hide it.

"Major, demonstrate the weapon on single shot, please," ordered Jack mildly.

Sam adjusted a control on the weapon's side and aimed again down the range, this time using the integrated sight that was little more than a small piece of transparent plastic with a calibrated aiming reticule printed on it. A single bolt shot from the PR7 and singed through the rope that held the log from the frame – at this distance it was barely a sliver to the naked eye – but Sam had hit it without even a pause. She turned back but this time a wide smile was on her face.

"This," said Jack to the assembled Jaffa raising a staff weapon he had politely borrowed from Raknor, "is a weapon of terror. It's made to…intimidate the enemy." And Jack had a good point there; the Jaffa were used to battling each other, and would only otherwise engage human populations who…for the most part…were still less advanced and could not fight back effectively. The staff weapon was a very intimidating weapon in that respect. "This," he now raised the PR7, "is a weapon of war. It's made to…kill your enemy."

"And it's capable of doing so at five times the range I just demonstrated," contributed Sam.

"We've used this and other weapons to win just about every skirmish we've had with the Goa'uld and the Jaffa who serve them. Those of you who have gone up against us and survived…and you know who you are…you know what I'm talking about."

"We accept your gifts with gratitude and humility. Now let us celebrate this new alliance," declared Kytano.

The Jaffa cheered as one again.

"They really like doing that, don't they?" asked Jack wryly.

"It might seem unruly, Jack," said Harry, "but you use any method available to you to raise morale if it's necessary."

"Indeed," agreed Jack.

They had retired to Kytano's tent where Harry, SG1, Kytano, Bratac and Raknor were sitting in a loose circle discussing matters of the future alliance. The tent itself was rather well appointed considering the conditions of the camp; with soft carpets and cushions, which nevertheless needed a trip to the cleaners and the tent had the musty smell of living within it. The relative opulence in which Kytano lived in though, struck Harry as strange…most Jaffa were not as caring about such things.

"Your weapons are formidable, yes," agreed Kytano, "but they lack the endurance of a staff."

"That's what these are for," said Sam holding a power pack.

"And you will provide them freely?" asked Kytano skeptically.

"That's the purpose of an alliance, isn't it?" said Daniel politely.

"It places you in a position of power over us," retorted Kytano. That meant the Jaffa leader was rather concerned with keeping his status quo more than his ability to fight. That did not bode well.

"You are concerned that we will dictate terms to you, and if you don't agree, we will withhold the ammunition?" said Harry with a raised eyebrow.

Kytano nodded, "Of course, it is only in concern for my people that I raise these questions."

"'Your' people?" asked Jack archly. Harry had to admit, Jack had a point, who did Kytano count as 'his' people?

"There is no warrior among us who cannot say 'my people'."

"As I also have done," said Teal'C promptly.

"Colonel O'Neill fears I will take all power for myself," said Kytano eventually after a thoughtful silence.

"You are gathering an army," said Sam pointedly.

"And I lead," agreed Kytano, "but there is no warrior among us who cannot claim **jomo secu.**"

"'Challenge of leadership,'" translated Daniel, after Jack shot him a look.

"To determine the worthiness of the victor, and his right to lead," explained Teal'C.

"To the death, I suppose," said Jack critically.

"Of course," confirmed Kytano.

"Of course," echoed Jack, "you know where…"

Harry cleared his throat loudly at another potential diplomatic blunder. "The Jaffa's ways are not under question," he said with a glance of warning at Jack, who looked disgruntled, "we as Terrans do not wish **our** ways to be forced upon others. It is their choice. Free will of all sentient beings **is **one of our ways. However, the indifference to death that is cultivated here will be in the long run I believe…self-defeating."

"It is my hope that we can learn from our differences," said Bratac into the silence that followed. "That they bond us together, make us stronger."

"Your words are wise, Master Bratac," said Kytano thoughtfully.

"Wise, indeed," said Jack.

"Tomorrow then," said Kytano with the air of having reached a decision, "we will bond in battle. You are familiar with the System Lord Nirtii?"

"Oh yeah," nodded Jack gravely.

"Tomorrow, we are going to raid a supply shipment, intended for a battalion of Nirtii's Jaffa. Join us."

"If we do," said Jack, ever the opportunist, "what's in it for us?"

"I see you are one who speaks your mind, O'Neill," chuckled Kytano.

"Yes, which is why I don't say much," said Jack self-deprecatingly.

"A share of the spoils?" offered Kytano.

"Spoils are good, we like spoils," grinned Jack.

"Teal'C has informed me that you require several hours of sleep," said the Jaffa leader with a deceptively polite smile, "there is no shame in doing so." He stood and left the tent.

"Thanks," said Jack sarcastically.

Day was a strange thing on the nameless planet in Nirtii's domain where she had one of her naquadah mines. (It was nameless because she never bothered with the effort of finding a unique name for it; which was rather difficult in a Galaxy with hundreds of thousands of inhabitable worlds). For one thing the atmosphere was way different than the standard 'Earth' like planets most of the Stargate tended to go to. The sky was a low dark red and the sun the planet was orbiting around was also radiating at a different spectral frequency than most…meaning that the star probably only had another billion years of fuel left before it collapsed into a Red Giant. (Unlike Sol which had five billion years left.) But time on such a scale did not concern the Goa'uld, who in the meantime mined the planet for Naquadah and its subsequent refinement.

It was rather easy to set up a surprise ambush for the intended shipment.

Kytano with a suitable force of his own warriors numbering fifty, SG1 and Harry had 'Gated to the mining planet. They had swiftly and silently defeated the four guards around the Stargate with surprise on their side, the PR7 hardly made more noise than the clap of a hand on single fire mode. Some of Kytano's Jaffa who were formerly in the service of Nirtii, appropriated the com gear and quickly gave an all clear transmission to the Pyramid in the distance near the naquadah mine.

Kytano had clearly done his homework as well, because he set up a flanking ambush along a path that came from the Stargate and which faced a cleared out area for the landing of cargo ships. As long as everyone kept their cool, the element of surprise would carry the day and the fact that there was little to no cover for any Jaffa in the landing area meant that it would be a swift fire fight if Kytano could not force a surrender.

The Cargo ship landed an hour after the ambush had settled into position, and it was not ten minutes later that a column of Jaffa came up the path toward the ship. In the center of their formation was a heavy looking ornate container that was carried between two rather big Jaffa and making it look easy.

When the column had reached the fire zone of the ambush the fifty odd strong attacking force primed staff weapon, zat gun and PR7s and popped over their cover and took aim. Harry, for his part, sighted on the Jaffa carrying the naquadah shipment, of course, Kytano didn't want a slaughter…he wanted converts.

"Kree!" he shouted towards the Jaffa column, "you are surrounded! Relinquish your weapons!"

As predicted Harry saw the enemy Jaffa scatter immediately into what little cover there was…some even hurried behind the crate of naquadah and some boldly dropped to one knee, primed their staffs and took aim.

Harry saw Kytano's lips thin in reaction to the tactics and gave a curt gesture to one of his Jaffa 'sergeants'. The Jaffa, who had a PR7, nodded, chose a target and let loose a burst of bolts; most of which had missed, but it was intentional on Kytano's part…it seemed he wanted to try to intimidate them into surrender.

It didn't work.

The enemy Jaffa fired thick orange bolts in retaliation into Kytano's positions and a moment later blue, orange and electric bolts were being sent back in answer. Harry did a rather uncustomary thing now when under fire, he retaliated to wound only…since it was possible that they could pledge themselves to the rebellion afterwards in light of their defeat and seeing so many of their fellow Jaffa united in cause. So, instead of aiming for abdomen, he aimed for legs, arms and shoulders, this meant he had to act as a Sniper (at least i.t.o. rate of fire) rather than a combat soldier. Something, which Jack looked at him in askance for when he was not busy shooting back at the Jaffa.

The firefight was in its second minute when it seemed Kytano had enough.

The Jaffa leader got to his feet and emerged from his cover and walked unflinchingly and boldly along the flank of the 'no-man's land' between the two fighting groups. Harry could only shake his head in amazement at the sight. His mind flashing to a story he had read about an Airborne Infantry Lieutenant in World War 2 running straight through the disorganized German lines to link up with another company of American troops…thus ensuring a coordination between the two squads that led to a rout of the German forces in the town. The difference here though was that Kytano was walking and he didn't want to wipe out the enemy.

"Hey!" called Jack urgently to Kytano over the noise of battle.

"He knows no fear!" shouted Raknor, shooting another orange bolt from his staff.

"Well, he knows stupid!" retorted Jack, reloading his PR7 and firing as well.

Kytano stood still and raised his arms. The sheer charisma and astonishment at his actions caused everyone to immediately obey his shout.

"**Hal mek!** Hold your fire!"

The shooting stopped.

"I am Kytano!" he addressed the enemy Jaffa. "If you have heard that name, then you know that there are other Jaffa who believe that the Goa'uld are false gods. Join us in our struggle against our oppressors, and live to seek freedom."

The Jaffa in charge of the column, emerged from his own meager cover and stood with primed staff weapon and pushed it flush against Kytano's breastplate.

"If you do not believe in freedom for our people, brother…then shoot me now," said Kytano defiantly, looking into the eyes of the Jaffa without fear and raising his arms to his sides.

Harry was impressed.

And apparently, so was the Jaffa leader…because after a few long moments of seeming serious contemplation and appraising, he lowered the staff and de-primed it. Kytano reached forward and clasped the leader on the shoulder, which the leader returned. This immediately caused all of Kytano' Jaffa to jump up and cheer in victory, raising staff and PR7 into the air.

"Do you believe in him now, O'Neill?" asked Teal'C. Harry didn't need to look at Jack to know that the man was highly skeptical of Kytano.

**Kal Mah, later the same day…**

The Jaffa were marching back to their camp victoriously, cheering, with their spoils of war in tow. Harry watched with a rising apprehension. What if that Jaffa had not been convinced by Kytano's plea and promptly shot him where he stood for daring to defy the Goa'uld? Where would the Jaffa rebellion be then? Not to mention that the Rebel Jaffa morale would have dropped like a stone. Since Kytano as yet had named no second in command.

Jack was apparently feeling this as well, because he motioned Teal'C to pause from the march to the camp.

"Umm…Teal'C," said Jack, eyeing the passing Jaffa around them and waiting until the group had passed. "Listen, I'm a little concerned about Kytano."

"Explain," said Teal'C, whose smile vanished suddenly off his face.

"You know that stunt he just pulled," said Jack, trying to explain.

"Kytano, is driven by the power of his beliefs," said Teal'C passionately.

"His beliefs are very impressive," admitted Jack, "but his tactics could've gotten us all killed."

"Kytano was successful," argued the Jaffa.

"I say he got lucky." This clearly angered Teal'C, who frowned severely.

"Then it appears we disagree," a Jaffa horn blasted in the distance from the camp. "Kytano summons us." And he promptly turned to run away.

"This isn't good," commented Harry, looking worried.

"It seems Teal'C is buying into Kytano's act."

"You think Kytano is acting?" asked Harry, looking at Jack strangely.

"I think Kytano believes he can walk on water."

The spoils of the battle were gathered in Kytano's tent, it consisted of two large trunks, one with stacked staff weapons, and the other with numerous tiny bricks of weapons grade naquadah.

"The fruits of our newborn alliance," said Kytano, still flush from victory. Harry and the rest of SG1 stared at the naquadah with interest. Though Earth had its own supply train of naquadah and the means to refine it, every little bit helped, and it spared time and resources.

"That's quite a haul," said Jack critically.

"Yes," nodded Kytano.

"What are you going to do with it?"

"I will give you as much as is fair," explained Kytano, "I have plans for the rest. As for the weapons, we require them all. I will be able to offer you many times as much once the Ha'tak arrives."

"A Ha'tak is coming here?" asked Harry with narrowed eyes. "Has it been liberated to your cause?"

"Perceptive," complimented Kytano, "yes, you chose your allies well. I've just received news that Jaffa loyal to me has staged a mutiny, as we speak, aboard a powerful mothership. Soon they will be on their way and unite with us in our cause."

"Mutiny?" said Jack. "…that's a little risky? Isn't it?" Indeed, such actions were rarely successful, unless under dire circumstances for the crew of the ship…where survival of everyone was at stake.

"There are always risks in war," said Kytano, dismissing Jack's concern.

"But if they fail, they…"

"They will succeed because their cause is just," interrupted Kytano firmly.

"I wish it worked that way," said Jack wistfully.

"They will succeed with the strength of their resolve. Come with me to the Chappa'ai. See for yourself," invited Kytano, gesturing for everyone to follow him.

The show of resolve was something that would leave a very bitter taste in Harry's mouth for a few hours. Later that day Kytano had gathered a squad of twelve Jaffa, including Tara'C at the base of the Stargate. They were armed to the teeth and Tara'C himself had strapped what Harry recognized as a Naquadah Reaction Device to his own chest. Other Jaffa had formed an honor guard that led to the Stargate itself and were watching events with a solemn air.

"Nirtii must not learn of our raid," declared Kytano as the Stargate was activated. "She would surely hunt us down. We must cover our tracks." He walked up to Tara'C and spoke passionately to him. "Tara'C, I chose you to lead this squad of brave warriors, because I know you will not fail me." Tara'C nodded solemnly and Kytano turned to the rest of the squad. "Know that if you are struck down in battle, you will live forever in Kheb, free from Goa'uld oppression for all time!"

A Jaffa carrying a smaller case ran up to Kytano and opened it to reveal the small bricks of weaponized Naquadah. He pulled one out and walked back to Tara'C, and placed it in the Reaction Device strapped to his chest. "Fight your way as deeply as you can into Nirtii's force. Show them your resolve! **Kalach shal tek!**"

Harry's eyes widened as he pieced together what the Jaffa squad was going to do. It was…nuts…from a Terran point of view, but the Jaffa had a rather similar mindset to the Samurai of Feudal Japan…honor before death. But purposely going on a suicide mission…

"**Kalach shal tek!**" echoed Tara'C and his squad.

"Victory or death," said Daniel, watching events with a frown.

"Sir, that's a Naquadah enhanced bomb," said Sam, gesturing to the device on Tara'C chest.

"Nothing so crude," said Harry in turn, "it creates a runaway cascade reaction in the weaponized Naquadah which causes fission."

"Like a suitcase nuke?" asked Jack archly.

"That's the closest Terran amalgam, yes," nodded Harry.

"He's sending them on a suicide mission," realized Daniel. It was too late to do anything to stop it. Tara'C shouted a warcry and the squad followed him running into the Stargate where they vanished beyond the event horizon. Jack had tried to object or get in the way or do anything to stop them, but Raknor restrained him.

"What the hell are you doing?" asked Jack, looking incensed at Kytano as the Stargate shut down.

"Do you now see the strength of our resolve?" asked Kytano intently.

"I see the strength of your arrogance!" snapped Jack.

"Do not interfere with things you know nothing about," said Kytano condescendingly.

"Oh, I know _exactly_ what you're about!"

"We are at war," said Kytano simply. "It is our way."

"And I suppose it makes you all-powerful to know how eager those boys are to die for you," argued Jack. At this point, the diplomat in Harry was pointing out that Jack was about to walk into a minefield of epic proportions, but his instincts were telling him to let this play out. He had been getting a funny feeling from Kytano even since he met the Jaffa, but couldn't place the reason…it was like trying to solve a Rubics cube or something that was on the tip of his tongue, but yet he couldn't spit it out.

"Their souls are on their way to a far better place," argued Kytano.

"You know, I've heard that before," said Jack condescendingly, referring to the Goa'uld's rhetoric to the Jaffa about the souls they supposedly 'controlled' the destiny of, because they were gods.

"You would deny the existence of Kheb? You would deny that their souls would find paradise?" asked Kytano hotly.

"He is not saying that," said Harry with a raised eyebrow. "What he is saying that you are throwing your men away for cannon fodder. And spouting religious platitudes remarkably similar to that of the Goa'uld themselves to justify those actions."

"You would dare compare me to our oppressors?" said Kytano, rounding on Harry, who didn't so much as flinch.

"Of course I dare," said Harry with narrowed eyes as he met the gaze of Kytano. "Your actions are no different. The System Lords also send Jaffa on suicide missions. They are also as fanatical about gaining power. They also try to assassinate each other and claim each other's armies, territories and resources. Is this your grand plan for the future Kytano…you assassinate System Lord after System Lord, claiming their ships and warriors…all who are willing to die for you…and this is different from the way things are in what way exactly?"

"The Jaffa will be free," stated Kytano.

"No, they will not be free," disagreed Harry, shaking his head and abruptly exploded into action. His hands shot outward to either side with Asgard Jewel Devices glowing brightly in his palms as he channeled power through them. A wave of energy expanded outward in every direction and knocked everyone off his or her feet, except for Harry and Kytano. Harry made a sweeping gesture with his left arm, a tear of cloth was heard as Kytano's shirt and the upper part of his robe was shredded. Another gesture of his right hand this time and a very surprised Kytano didn't react in time as he was blasted by a telekinetic wave and landed on his back…whereupon Harry promptly threw a paralysis matrix to keep the half naked Kytano down.

The Jaffa were swiftly recovering their footing and those who had staff weapon handy rapidly trained them onto Harry. Even Teal'C, Raknor and Bratac were among those who were aiming at the Ambassador.

Harry had to admire their reflexes, as the first orange staff blasts lanced in towards him, but was instantly dissipated on a glowing blue shield that protected him and Kytano from harm. Jack and the rest of SG1 had brought their own weapons up and pointed them at anyone close by, but the Jaffa were clearly only interested in Harry.

However, after a few moments the staff and zat blasts stopped, as all the Jaffa's weapons had promptly gone flying out of their hands upwards and vanished with a slight ripple effect. Harry grinned. He had to thank Lya of the Nox for teaching him that little trick. The Nox, were like the Alterrans, in that they had also evolved to the point of mastering the energy within…and they well on par with the Alterrans in their mastery. However, they would never use it offensively, as that would not be their 'Way'.

The Jaffa stood rather in awe of this display and as such didn't move to try and engage in hand to hand. Which was wise.

"Teal'C, Raknor, Bratac, peace!" said Harry raising his hands again, but this time in a gesture of surrender.

"What have you done to our weapons?" snapped Raknor.

"Oh, don't worry, they'll be returned, but before you get them back, please, examine Kytano's abdomen for me, if you will," said Harry enigmatically. Despite themselves the Jaffa around the Stargate immediately turned their eyes towards their fallen leader…and…

Murmurings of astonishment broke across the clearing and Teal'C and Bratac stepped forward cautiously, wearily eyeing Harry and lowered their eyes to the paralyzed Kytano…

Where there should have been an 'X' shaped symbiote pouch scar of a Jaffa, there was nothing but a smooth unblemished stomach.

"I do not understand," said Raknor with a frown as he kneeled next to the prone Kytano. "I sense a Prim'tah in him, nevertheless, that can only mean…" Raknor's eyes widened in astonishment.

"He never disrobed in your or anyone else's presence, has he?" asked Harry with narrowed eyes.

Raknor's eyes strained as he was striving to recall any occasion that he had seen Kytano without shirts or tunics, and couldn't find a single memory, he even bathed in the rivers with a shirt on.

"No," said Raknor, he stood and declared to everyone. "Kytano is not Jaffa! Yet he has a Prim'ta…" Every Jaffa came to the same conclusion and suddenly shouts and jeers of anger were heard.

"Daniel, what are they shouting?" asked Jack, trying to make some sense of what just happened.

"Kytano is a Goa'uld apparently, and they are shouting for his death," translated Daniel.

"Damn, I knew my gut was right," said Jack, flicking his fingers in recrimination. "I just knew that there was something off with him."

"Hindsight is 20/20, Jack," said Harry, who had come back after taking off the paralysis matrix on Kytano, whereupon the Goa'uld Jaffa imposter was promptly apprehended by a mass of Rebel Jaffa and frog marched back to the camp. "I think we should let the Jaffa take care of him and then we will have to help our new allies to evacuate to Earth temporarily."

"Why?" asked Daniel curiously.

"The mothership that the Rebels were staging a mutiny on failed," said Harry, his eyes looking unfocused and distant.

"How could you possibly know that?" asked Jack in disbelief. "And how did you know Kytano was actually a snake for that matter?"

"Ever since Kytano mentioned it, earlier today, I have been monitoring Ha'tak's closest to Kel Mah with the Asgard satellite network," said Harry in patient explanation. "I could go into massive detail about what they picked up, but to make a long story short, they registered a Ha'tak belonging to Yu suddenly stopping in mid-flight, and change course towards Kel Mah, only to be intercepted by a fleet of five Ha'taks two hours later, there was a short battle in which the Rebel Ha'tak was boarded and apparently recaptured…because it resumed a course to Kel Mah again afterward."

"Ah, so the Ha'tak on its way is actually coming to wipe the Rebels out, because they probably tortured this planet's location out of them," said Jack.

"As to how I knew Kytano was a Goa'uld, well, he was standing rather close to me in our little argument, this allowed me to sense the location of his symbiote; which was twirled around the spinal column and into the brain and fully mature, instead of being curled up inside his abdomen and immature."

"I didn't know it was possible to 'sense' so precisely," commented Sam.

"It is, for a Tok'ra, and since I was one…but you recall very little from your own time…so…" he trailed off with a smile letting them fill in the gaps themselves.

It was almost evening when Teal'C and Bratac returned. Harry and SG1 had decided to let the Jaffa choose their own destinies and as such remained at the base of the Stargate.

"We come to thank you for opening our eyes to the truth, Ambassador," said Bratac, he and Teal'C bowing their heads in respect. "I admit, so blinded I was by hope for Kytano that I ignored any signs of duplicity I might have seen."

"Has he revealed his own identity yet?" asked Harry curiously.

"It is Imhotep, himself," said Teal'C.

"So he used the Jaffa's desire for freedom against them," reasoned Daniel, "it was probably the only way he could gain any real power."

"So let me get this straight," stated Jack with a frown, "Imhotep pretended to off himself and then jumped into a lookalike of his First Prime and then used the Rebels…" he looked at Harry.

"Yes, probably something like that," agreed Harry, stifling a grin at Jack's confused look. He turned back to Teal'C. "What will happen now with the leadership of the Rebels? You cannot claim **Jomo Secu** against a Goa'uld."

"The Jaffa will fall back on ancient tradition in such circumstances where no clear leader or First Prime can succeed the fallen leader," said Teal'C, his eyes suddenly sparkled with amusement and Bratac began to grumble under his breath. "Leadership then automatically falls with the eldest Jaffa amongst the group."

"Congratulations, Bratac," said Harry with a grin. The old Jaffa only continued to grumble in Goa'uld under his breath, glaring at Teal'C, who obviously was the culprit in reminding everyone of that ancient law. "Relax, my fellow warrior," said Harry placing a hand on the old man's shoulder, "it's been often proven that those who have power thrust upon them who do not wish it, are those best suited to it."

Bratac stared at Harry for a moment and then turned solemnly to the camp in the distance. "Wise words, Ambassador…wise…"

_A/N: Sorry for the delay. Been busy this Summer. The ancient Jaffa law is actually one that stems from traditional African tribes belief in the 'Elders of a Tribe' they are those who make the social decisions in a community, in some cases even matters regarding justice and law'. I've always thought Bratac had a lot more potential in the canon Universe than what they actually gave him. Making Teal'C the leader was a bad move…he's always running around with his Tau'ri buddies and not actually…leading. Bratac has the experience and knowledge to be a good leader and be there for the Rebels…the consequences of this will be huge in my Universe. (Advanced Warfighter belongs to Tom Clancy Ghost Recon Series)_


	26. Chapter 26

_**Chapter Twenty-Six – What lies beyond**_

Seaworld

The first thing Harry's mind registered was a fruity smell, and as he shrugged off the fog of sleep, he became aware that his nose was nuzzled in the mane of his wife's long hair, and his arms were clutched around her soft yet firm form and she was very warm. In annoyance he tried to identify what had awakened him. His senses automatically reached over to the small cots where his infant children were…and they were still asleep. He also felt the rhythmic collection of energies that was the Nannybot, hovering protectively over Jason and his twin sister, but nothing had come from that direction.

It was when he felt the brief pulse of subspace in the room that he gritted his teeth in irritation and resisted the urge to curse in every language he knew. There was only one device in the stilted hut hovering over the lagoon that could do that. He glanced at the bedside table and saw that it was two o' clock in the morning on Seaworld.

"Ignore it," came the whisper from his wife. It seemed that she too had felt the subspace pulse from the communicator; he marveled for a moment in pride at Apollonia's increased abilities, she had begun, like he, to allow the Universe and legacy of their race to unspool from within. She was becoming a remarkably proficient 'Builder'; a title the Alterans had given to those among them who were skilled in assembling the most complicated of the technologies and devices they had developed. The PR8 AW being a case in point since the further development of PR7 was all due to her, (it was nothing compared against some of the devices a fully skilled Builder could construct but it was a promising sign for the future).

"You know, I'm really considering that," he said seriously, but his voice turned wry, "but knowing SG1 and the situations that the SGC get themselves into…"

She sighed in a manner of acceptance and grudging understanding and she gestured towards the heavy sling bag Harry had come home with. Immediately the blinking beeping subspace communicator seemingly floated itself out of the bag and the laptop sized instrument sailed through the air and landed on the bed.

Harry sat up with a yawn and picked the device up and after rubbing the residual sleep out of his eyes opened the message with a few taps on the touch sensitive screen. He abruptly let out a noise of astonishment, as he was halfway through reading.

"What is it?" said Apollonia, also sitting up but glancing automatically at the crib holding their children.

"SG1 has seemingly solved the mystery of the Replicator's origins," said Harry with an intrigued raise of an eyebrow. "They've found an android on an desolated world and…" he paused to read, "ah, and of course they just had to take it back and activate it…"

"And?" she asked expectantly.

"Well it seems this android has to ability to create Replicators from scratch using a method Sam thinks is related to a highly sophisticated form of nanotechnology. The android itself is artificially intelligent, and goes by name of Reese, of all things."

"Oh bother," she sighed, "I have learned much from my Legacy but I find the idea of creating a sentient being out of the virtual ether of computers to be highly dubious, and I have no idea why we ever would want a machine to do our thinking for us."

Harry only grunted in agreement and continued reading.

"They also make mention that this android could be the key to a quicker and more decisive way of helping the Asgard eliminate the Replicators in the Ida Galaxy," he summarized after reading the next section.

"That sounds promising," she said with a grin.

"And…" he was interrupted though when the communicator beeped in a shrill pattern that indicated the message it was receiving was of direst emergency. This was of course, enough to wake the children who began to whimper and moan at the ugly sound permeating what were once their safe little dream worlds. Apollonia immediately jumped out of bed to calm them down as Harry cursed and shut down the klaxon of alarm coming from the device.

He read the message, blinked, and flung himself out of bed. "We better get the children into Kvasir's care. The SGC is under attack by the Replicators's the android made…"

"…and you wish me to go as well?" she asked in surprise.

"Of course, I know I've been a bit leery, shall we say about you going into these sort of situations now that we have the little ones," he said with a smile, though he was also feasting his eyes on her form as she cradled his daughter whom was calming swiftly down thanks to her mother's mental efforts…the sight never failed to fill him with love and emotion. "But you also have a right to defend this Galaxy, almost as surely as I have. I would be remiss if I ignored the contribution you could bring."

She placed her daughter back in the crib and swiftly seized his mouth in a passionate kiss.

"Though I don't object," he said with a grin, "what was that for?"

"Proving once again why I decided to spend the rest of my life with you…"

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Harry and Apollonia stood several meters in front of the Seaworld Stargate, the moonlight shone eerily on them as it reflected the mercury-like chromesuits both husband and wife were clad in. He had cheekily told her that they should confront more implacable foes together. She would distract the enemy with her utter beauty (the chromesuit conformed to her every curve as his did) while he would send the said distracted enemy into oblivion. He was still nursing his shoulder from her equally cheeky reply.

"Are you sure these are necessary?" she asked him, gesturing with her free left hand towards the palm of her right, where an Asgard Jewel Device was glowing.

"Technically, no," said Harry, "they are merely a cover I am using to explain away the use of my powers to the SGC. As a whole, they are not ready for the knowledge of the power we possess as descendants of the Alterans. There are some on Earth who know, but it is only at the very highest levels of leadership." She nodded in understanding.

"You mind if I open the 'Gate?" she asked next.

"Ladies first," he grinned and bowed with a flourish. She sent him a withering mock glare for a moment but grinned, unable to quell her amusement. She took a deep breath…closed her eyes and after a few moments of concentration opened them again only to raise her arms…drawing a huge circle with her hands in the air…abruptly the subspace path sprang to life with a whoosh of unstable plasma and finally settled into the waterlike event horizon.

"Nicely done," he said approvingly. And raised the GDO and typed in his code and transmitted it through the Gate. There was no response. Nothing.

"Perhaps the Replicators are subverting the computer systems already," said Apollonia.

"A sound assumption," commented Harry and walked forward. He placed a bare hand on the naquadah alloy of the Stargate itself and closed his eyes. His body glowed suddenly, tendrils of white power blossoming into the visual spectrum; they seemed to dip into the glowing event horizon for a few moments and then withdrew and faded from view entirely. "It seems we opened the Gate just in time. The android has not managed to establish an outgoing path from Earth yet; she is still attempting to gain access to the Dialing computer."

"And our established path to Earth prevents any escape attempt," his wife stated.

"Yes, the android has also barricaded herself in the Gate room, there are Replicators everywhere, she has also shut the iris, though I can easily override it to allow us access," said Harry.

"Then let us save Earth yet again, shall we?" she grinned.

He nodded and sent forth his power and will through the subspace path across thousands of lightyears and grabbed a hold of the Iris protecting the Earth Stargate. Helped by the Stargate itself, acceding to his mental command the Iris slid open.

"We're clear, the instant you materialize on the ramp send a Disruption wave, there are Replicators on the ramp itself," he instructed.

She nodded and visibly steeled herself her mind running through the mental preparations for sending forth her 'spells' though she knew they were just exotic energy harnessed to achieve a specific purpose, she couldn't stop thinking of them in the old way.

Apollonia went through the event horizon with a determined step…she was flying down the twisting tunnel in the ether of the Universe…the next her vision cleared and she was staring at the concrete environment of the SGC. She immediately raised her right hand and a wave of energy shot out that twisted the light spectrum visibly and caused the fifteen odd spider like Replicators to instantly dissolve into their component blocks and clutter to the steel ramp uselessly.

It seemed though, that her sudden assault had interrupted a wide-eyed Daniel Jackson, who was seemingly unarmed and seemed to be speaking to the petite dark skinned girl android. Daniel was cradling his wrist and kneeling near the android. Reese herself also looked astonished at the destruction of her Replicators by this tall, beautiful woman, whom one could almost mistake for an android with the chromesuit she was wearing.

Harry appeared next to his wife a moment later, his hand also out, ready to send a Disruption wave. He gave a mental command to the Stargate to remain active for the full 38 minutes it was capable of in non-relativistic conditions with a standard power supply.

"Who are you?" shrilled Reese at them both, whirling around to face them from her position at the bottom of the ramp. The android was looking frantic and its eyes glinted with desperation.

"That does not matter," said Apollonia with a shake of her head. And sent another blast of energy that caused another group of Replicators to falls into parts.

"STOP!" shrilled Reese and rushed up the ramp, seeming trying to attack Apollonia physically to stop her. Apollonia stared unflinchingly as Reese threw a punch that would probably take any normal persons head off. The android's fist simply bounced just as powerfully off an electric green shield than dampened the inertia as well, but that kinetic energy had to go somewhere and it went smack back into Reese, who was abruptly flung off balance and landed on her robotic rear end.

Harry saw Reese narrowing her eyes at them and then suddenly stare at the remaining Replicators who abruptly started to retreat away from the Gate room.

"I don't think so," said Harry with a frown and with a grunt of effort a Disruption wave shot out from him like he was epicenter of bomb. The wave made an odd worbling sound and disabled Replicator blocks began to rain everywhere.

"NOO!" shrilled Reese, her eyes frantic as she stared at the dead blocks in horror.

Apollonia had seemingly had enough of the android and her shrill screams and promptly flung a Temporal Restraining Matrix to freeze the distraught girl in Time.

"Are you all right, Daniel?" asked Harry in concern, helping the man up.

"Fine," said the archeologist with a frown, looking at the prone form of Reese as Apollonia examined the android. "She just sprained the wrist, I think."

"Were you attempting to negotiate with her to stop?" asked Harry with an arched brow.

"Something like that," said Daniel shaking his head, "she was so emotionally immature, she couldn't face the fact that her 'toys' had destroyed her own civilization and killed her 'father' when she lost control of them."

"Speaking of the 'toys' I think I should join the sweep of the base," said Harry, and turned to his wife, "can you deactivate her?"

"I believe I can," said Apollonia, her eyes closed and a slight rapturous expression blossomed on her face, which faded and then she felt around the android's ear…and a mechanism opened out of its neck where a glowing power crystal was located, she pulled it out and stood casually lobbing the thing to her husband. Harry looked at the rounded thick crystal for a moment, and then propped it into Daniel's hand. "Look after that, Earth can learn a lot from it."

Apollonia nodded at Daniel as she joined her husband and walked out of the gate room, the blast doors opening to reveal a surprised Jack O'Neill, who by the looks of it was about to start using an acetylene torch to cut open the door.

"Ambassador," said Jack with a confused blink, after which he promptly dropped the torch and hefted his USAS and scanned the Gate room for any Replicators. He turned back and only now he comprehended Apollonia's presence, which left him rather…at a loss for words, until Harry coughed pointedly.

"Shall we kick some Replicator butt, Colonel?" asked Harry astutely.

"Sure…right…be right behind ya," said Jack, hefting his automatic shotgun. Harry sighed and shook his head and the three headed down the corridor.

The full sweep of the Base took another five hours, during which both Harry and Apollonia only had to fire their Disruption waves several times to take out massed Replicators who were attempting to overwhelm the SFs guarding key locations in the Base. The most nerve-wracking of which was when they had to keep the room, which housed the self-destruct mechanism out of Replicators hands. General Hammond and Sam had been on the verge of being overwhelmed, but thankfully they arrived in time. It gave Harry the opportunity to see Hammond for the first time wearing a tac vast and brandishing a shotgun; it felt distinctly strange to see the man involved in action.

It was later during the debrief decided that the deactivated Reese would be shipped to Seaworld and handed over to the Asgard there, from where Thor would pick it up for transportation back to the Asgard homeworld in Ida.

**Four days later…**

The Earth Stargate burst to life with a roar of energy. Signals were exchanged and the iris was opened. Only the people that popped out of the event horizon were in an unaccustomed hurry. Normally, when a team returns, they stroll calmly down, as this was friendly territory. This was the farthest thing from the minds of SG1 and Ambassador Harry as they appeared.

Daniel was strangely in the lead of the group, a wooden, blank expression on his face, he was keeping his arms bent, and a crude bandage was wrapped around one hand. He didn't even pause to acknowledge General Hammond, who was waiting near the edge of the embarkation ramp. Hammond was surprised at this and his frown turned to Sam, clearly he wanted an explanation.

"We have to get to the infirmary," she said, a distressed look on her face, "Daniel's been exposed to radiation."

Hammond's eyes widened and he didn't hesitate.

"Have a medical team meet us on the way!" he barked at the control room.

Harry followed the group into the twisting corridors with blazing eyes. His hands clenching with suppressed anger.

"Colonel, what happened?" asked Hammond.

"The details are sketchy, sir," said Jack, his body language clearly showing his own anger.

"We were not present at the time of the incident," said Teal'C stoically.

A couple of medical nurses arrived and were about to touch Daniel, but his wooden expression cracked and he snapped at both nurses, "Don't touch me!" Both women warily backed off and raised their hands in surprise; they obviously couldn't imagine the kind Daniel acting to them in this manner.

"He may still be radioactive," explained Sam to both nurses, as they joined the troupe headed towards the Infirmary.

Doctor Frasier emerged from the Infirmary door they were approaching and immediately started to snap orders at the techs and nurses inside, "let's get him scrubbed down!" as Daniel and the two nurses passed her into the medical domain of the SGC. She turned to face SG1 and Harry.

"Do we know what kind and how much?" she asked urgently.

"It was a device housing an unstable radioactive variation of naquadah. We think his right hand was exposed to the equivalent of over eight to nine grays of neutron radiation resulting from direct contact. Full body exposure of seven," explained Sam, and as if the explanation had suddenly made it all real, tears started to flow from her eyes.

"Oh, my…" said Janet, closing her eyes and she looked as if she was visibly trying to prevent herself from loosing control of her own emotions.

"Doctor?" asked Hammond intently for clarification.

"It's a lethal dose, sir," said Sam, her eyes glistening.

Harry sat next to Sam, Jack and Teal'C in the Briefing Room, they had been ordered here mainly to prevent from getting underfoot in the Infirmary, but also to eventually brief Hammond on what had happened. Harry was not worried about the past or what had happened, he was trying and failing to come up with something that would prevent Daniel's imminent death.

It was at this point that Hammond entered and he automatically waived down Sam and Jack to remain in their seats.

"As you were," he said, "Doctor Frasier tells me there is nothing more we can do for Dr Jackson at the moment. In the meantime, tell me what happened."

"Well sir," said Sam after taking a deep fortifying breath, "as you know from our initial reports, Kelowna is one of three major countries on 4C3. What we've learned since our initial contact is that they appear to be at a similar stage of development to that of the United States in the 1940's. Geopolitically, there is obvious mounting tension between the nations."

"Sort of like a cold war, sir," said Jack helpfully.

"The Kelownans discovered their Stargate approximately fifteen years ago, unearthing it along with a number of Goa'uld artifacts in what appears to be an ancient temple," she went on.

"Their knowledge of the Gate is still limited," contributed Teal'C.

"But their interest is strong," said Sam, "when we told them what we could offer, they were eager to share any technologies they were developing that could potentially be offered in exchange."

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_Harry walked through the relatively clunky looking iron door that controlled access to the Kelownan Stargate and into a corridor with similar brick and ironwork adjoining the walls and supports. There were a few mullioned windows that filtered the area with yellow light and large fans twirled to provide air circulation. It seemed like it was a hot summers day on this planet. SG1 followed a step behind him and the door was closed from behind. _

_It was at this point that a relatively young looking man, wearing some form of short formal robes over a pair of equally formal pants and shiny leather shoes, met them. He had the same distinctive air of academia that Daniel carried everywhere with him and looked just as excited when he engaged in First Contact. He eagerly shook Harry's hand._

"_This is incredible," said the young man, his trim face shining, "I'm Jonas Quinn, I'm a special advisor to our High Minister." It was at this point that he noticed the strange 'characteristics' of the visiting group; namely Harry's chromesuit and Teal'C First Prime tattoo on his forehead._

"_Greetings, Jonas Quinn," said Harry with a bow of his head not bothering to enlighten Quinn about either, "I'm Ambassador Harry Potter, behind me is Doctor Daniel Jackson, our team's archeologist, Colonel Jack O'Neill our military leader, Scientist and Second in Command, Major Carter and Teal'C, our Tactical Officer." Teal'C blinked at that description of his role in SG1 but let it slide._

"_Teal'C," said Quinn, trying the pronunciation out, "well, your arrival on our planet is an extraordinary event. It's my honor to show you around this research facility. Please, follow me."_

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"He's an advisor to the High Minister," said Harry.

"Their equivalent of our President," added Jack, tapping his pen against a notepad absently.

"As we understand it, Jonas Quinn was responsible for overseeing the research from an ethical perspective," explained Sam.

"Yeah, whatever," scoffed Jack, clearly of the opinion that, that was BS.

"He has numerous degrees from their most honored education institution. Social studies, ancient Kelownan history…" said Harry but was interrupted by Jack.

"He was a nerd, sir," said the Colonel, bottom-lining it. "He and Daniel got along great."

_Jonas Quinn took the lead and guided them through the research complex, which seemed to be housed in a building above ground with multiple levels. They passed various laboratories where scientists milled about large desks with chemicals, test tubes, and all a manner of equipment, yet it was clear that they were working with Terran equivalent 1940s science and technology. Daniel was walking next to Jonas and they already chatting and it seemed as if a great rapport was already developing between them._

"_If we could get access to where the Stargate was discovered and see the artifacts," explained Daniel, "we have this process called Carbon Dating. Then I could figure out the age of the temple and maybe even discover how it was destroyed."_

"_I'm sure that can be arranged," said Jonas with a pleased expression, "our archeologists believe they have only begun to uncover the full extent of what may be buried. There were extensive alien writings."_

"_Teal'C, the Ambassador and I could help with the translation," offered Daniel generously._

"_Daniel?" interjected Jack pointedly, hoping to curb Daniel's enthusiasm, as the translations could become integral to the negotiations for any technology exchanges. Jonas proved himself quite perceptive as he instantly grasped the subtext of Jack's tone._

"_I understand from our leaders that your knowledge and expertise will come at a price, Colonel," said Jonas, losing his perpetual happy-face and adopting a disapproving expression. Clearly, Jonas thought that knowledge should be 'open source' and was not something to be jealously hoarded. "That is why you're here, right?"_

"_Well, don't get me wrong," said Jack, "we want to help out as much as we can, it's just we've been burned a little in the past." That was an understatement, thought Harry. The biggest burn the SGC had had in the past was when a madwoman, and scientist who had the nickname 'Destroyer of Worlds' had taken advantage of their generosity, and SG1 had unwittingly freed her from her prison._

"_We're not questioning so much what you have to offer in return," said Daniel, hurrying to explain their position._

"_We just want to get to know you better first," said Sam with a bright smile._

"_Still," said Jonas adopting his happy-face again, "hopefully, we'll have much to offer in exchange. This way."_

_Jonas led the way into an observation room that was overlooking what looked like the main lab in the building, judging from its size, and from the thickness of the glass, the lead reinforced walls, and the bulky black protection suits the scientists inside were wearing, that the lab dealt with something quite radioactive. Harry reached into his chromesuit's storage pocket and produced a slim handheld scanner._

"_What's that?" asked Jonas curiously._

"_I'm just measuring the radiation in our current location," said Harry, staring at the results. He tapped the screen a few times and sighed, and put it back into the pocket on his left side, which immediately sealed itself and blended with the rest of the suit so that one could not even tell that there was a pocket. "It's safe enough," declared Harry, "though I recommend that you add at least another inch to the protection in the walls and interlace the glass with a lead mesh."_

"_I'll be sure to mention that to the engineers," said Jonas with a pleased nod. The scientists inside the lab sealed up the device that Harry couldn't yet make out and abruptly the lights above the lab went from red to blue. "We can go in now."_

_They entered the room as the scientists were taking off their helmets and it allowed them to view the device for the first time. It was actually quite small; a glass sphere thirty centimeters in diameter, which contained within a dark black metal sphere with a hole drilled in the top. Numerous wires and clunky sensors were attached to glass sphere and the whole apparatus was mounted on a sturdy frame bolted into the floor. Hovering directly over the hole in the black metal was what looked like a gold colored control rod. Clearly they were experimenting with some form of nuclear reaction here. Harry stared with wide eyes at Sam, who met his gaze with a similar expression. _

_It looked like the dinosaur of nuclear reactors, and was about just as safe. Jonas gestured to the scientist who had been working the control rod; a chubby man with a neutral expression on his face as he observed his visitors._

"_This is Tomis Leed," said Jonas, "he is chief physicist overseeing the development of our most critical project. Tomis, these are our visitors from the planet Earth."_

"_My pleasure," said Tomis, a smile forming on his face._

"_What is this?" asked Sam, though she had a good idea already._

"_The core of this device was uncovered in an ancient temple of a race of people we believe were called the Guld," explained Tomis._

"_Goa'uld," corrected Teal'C stoically._

"_Really?" said Jonas with an interested expression on his face._

"_It's a mineral substance found to have highly unstable radioactive properties," said Tomis, "this experiment seems to indicate the potential for great bursts of energy."_

"_Our translations of the writings in the temple indicate that the alien element is called Naquadria," indicated Jonas._

"_Naquadah," corrected Daniel, staring at the device with a frown._

"_No," disagreed Jonas thoughtfully, throwing a glance to Tomis, "we also translated that word in the same text. This is definitely Naquadria."_

"_It's seems then that this Naquadria might just be an isotope of Naquadah," said Harry with a frown, "perhaps it has a higher electron count?" he asked Sam, who shrugged a maybe. "Is this a power generation device?"_

"_Not exactly," said Jonas, his smile definitely didn't reach his eyes._

"They were making a bomb, sir," said Jack pointedly to the General.

"It was pretty crude," said Sam with a frown, "but even that crude bomb they're developing could easily be the equal to one of our naquadah-enhanced nuclear warheads thanks to the Naquadria."

"The Kelownans claimed they were under threat of oppression from their neighboring nations," said Teal'C, looking solemn, "and the weapon would only be used to ensure their freedom."

"Sounds like a situation we would have to be very careful about getting involved in," said Hammond wearily.

"We will not have to worry about the situation at all, General," said Harry evenly, a clear current of suppressed anger lacing his tone.

"How so?" asked Hammond.

"We were touring the city," reported Harry, his expression stony. "Daniel insisted on staying behind at the research facility with Jonas. As you can imagine General, he was passionate about trying to convince the Kelownan people that building a Naquadria bomb wasn't going to be the answer to their problems." He took a deep breath and expelled it quickly. "The next thing we know we are being called back to the facility and that Daniel was lethally irradiated and the main lab was in pieces. The Kelownans claimed that he tried to sabotage their research." His expression turned ugly to show what he thought of that claim.

"They're lying, General," said Jack flatly.

"I also do not believe this to be true," said Teal'C his eyes flashing.

"The fact is, they don't want us around there anymore," said Jack, he turned his head away and was seen gritting his teeth in the direction of the Gate.

"But they are demanding that Daniel be returned to face the charges if he survives," said Sam.

"Ambassador," said Hammond, closing his eyes for a moment, "is there anything that you can do for Daniel?" The General's tone was not lost on Harry, nor the fact that he used Daniel's given name…this was a personal plea.

"The sheer amount of radiation that Daniel was exposed to and the time he has left due to that, leaves very little options," said Harry gravely. "If an Asgard was exposed to a similar level of radiation, they would download their consciousness into a new cloned body, and leave the old one to die. Even their medical technology would not be able to cure Daniel. I have access to some Ancient medical technology that would do the job…if he was an Ancient or at least a descendant, like I am, but as far as I know, he isn't."

"What would happen if you used that on him anyway?" asked Sam, brushing away a tear from her eyes.

"It would make things worse, Daniel would die sooner and his dead tissue would be artificially reanimated, and I don't think you want a zombie Daniel walking around the base," he said grimly. "The Goa'uld Healing Hand device would save his life if a skilled user was applying it, but it's capabilities are more limited when dealing with radiation exposure, Daniel would be left with permanent disfigurement and disability, and his lifespan would be halved."

"He'd never want to live like that," said Sam softly, sniffing.

"What about a Goa'uld sarcophagus?" said Jack intently. "SG3 brought back intelligence on the location of one two months ago."

"What about it's negative effects?" pointed out Harry in frustration. "Daniel's been in one too many times. He's used it twice to prevent imminent death and numerous times after that for no reason when he was in the thrall of that Princess a few years ago. You lose a part of yourself every time you go in that thing."

"SG3's report also indicated that the sarcophagus is heavily guarded and sitting the middle of Goa'uld stronghold," said Hammond. "Retrieving it, would likely result in only more casualties, which is what we're trying to prevent in the first place. Now…what I would like to know is what Dr Jackson says happened."

Daniel was sitting on a bed in the Infirmary, he was dressed in white hospital pajamas and Harry could already see some of the radiation exposure effects; there was some blistering on his face and his skin looked like it had the world's most extreme suntan. His general disposition was fluctuating up and down like a rollercoaster; one moment he'd be smiling the next he'd be in a cynical depressive state. Harry had just finished explaining that the only hope for his survival at this point would be a sarcophagus. Daniel, as expected, didn't want it nor did he want anyone to risk his or her lives by assaulting a Goa'uld stronghold, just for him. The entire situation made Harry wish that he had taken the bloody time to study and learn the Alteran skill of Touch Healing to the extent that he could reverse Daniel's condition…but it was a fool's hope, only an Alteran Healer with a few decades of experience in it could **maybe** have saved Daniel.

"The nausea will be followed be tremors, convulsions and something called ataxia," said Daniel with a wince. "Surface tissue, brain tissue and internal organs will inflame and degrade, I believe that's called necrosis. Now based on the dose of radiation I got, all that will happen in the next ten to fifteen hours, and if I don't drown in my own fluids first, I will bleed to death, and there is no medical treatment to prevent that."

That was Daniel's answer to Jack's innocent question of how the archeologist was feeling.

Harry in an effort to change the subject into any positive areas asked what happened in the main lab.

"It doesn't matter," said Daniel with a hopeless sigh.

"Yes, it does," objected Jack strongly, "you didn't try to sabotage anything!"

"There was an accident," said Daniel with a non-caring shrug, "I guess the scientists figured that the government would hold them responsible. I guess they figured it was easier to blame me."

"And you're ok with this?" asked Jack shrewdly.

"No," admitted Daniel, "but there's not much I can do about that."

"Yes, there is."

"If they really want to blame me," said Daniel pointedly, "denying it isn't going to change anything. Ten thousand years ago, a Goa'uld tried the same experiments that they're trying and he nearly blew the entire planet to bits. I tried telling them that, they wouldn't listen. They're going to build that bomb and nothing we say is going to stop them."

Harry stared at the large plasma screen mounted in Sam's lab with no small amount of awe. It was showing a curving power output projection graph and all its attendant calculations in small windows in the margins.

"Are you sure of these figures?" he asked the astrophysicist faintly.

"Not a hundred percent," allowed Sam, moving from her workstation to stand next to him in staring at the plasma, "since these are based on the levels of radiation the Kelownans say Daniel was exposed to and I have no data on the inaccuracy margin in their equipment. But even using my least optimistic projections, I've estimated the amount of energy that would have generated by the experiment. You can see the results for yourself." The power curve was unreal, over a thousand percent stronger that what weapons grade Naquadah would deliver. "This could be the key to making the anti-Ha'tak missiles regain their effectiveness, not to mention increasing the energy output of our reactors and shields, and our potentially triple our top Hyperspace speed."

"Speaking of the anti-Ha'tak missiles," said Harry with an air of remembrance, "I've received word from our Tollan friends in hiding. I handed them our problem with the missiles a few months ago to see what they could make of it."

"And?" said Sam, a hint of scientific eagerness returning.

"Instead of using Potassium in the warhead they've substituted it for a more highly reactive isotope of Francium, they've allowed me to give you the method of doing that and sustaining its half-life near indefinitely," explained Harry. "That improvement alone should triple the energy yield of the missile. They also recommended that we shape the warhead to give a directed delivery of offensive energy; in the shape of a narrowing cone. And they've removed the DeltaV solid rocket propellant, exchanged it for a miniaturized high-speed sublight engine with a self-guided range of two hundred and fifty thousand kilometers, beyond that it goes ballistic until a million kilometers and then self-destructs."

"That's amazing," said Sam, a smile gracing her face but died just as quickly. "So, if we now add to all that a pebble of Naquadria instead of weapons grade Naquadah, our missiles will become true Ha'takbusters."

"That's the long and short of it," nodded Harry.

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Once again they were gathered in the briefing room, Jack explained Daniel's unsatisfying and brief version of events to the General, while Harry and Sam delivered their findings on Naquadria and the impending Tollan upgrades.

"But by now their government believes Dr Jackson was trying to sabotage their research," said General Hammond, who looked rather sour with himself, though it wasn't obvious to everyone else except Harry.

"It's a lie," said Jack strongly, "they're using Daniel as a scapegoat."

"Still," said Hammond, "you said he was vocal in his disapproval of their project before the accident. None of this bodes well for diplomatic relations."

"Why are you talking about diplomatic relations?" said Jack in exasperation, "this is Daniel's **life**."

"Sir, I know how you feel," said Sam, looking unhappy, "because I feel the same way and so does everyone else. But I cannot stress enough how valuable this element could be. If we can learn to refine it ourselves even…" she trailed off not needing to finish.

"I will draft a letter to the Kelownan leader…" said Hammond with a nod of understanding.

"General, you cannot capitulate to these people. They are lying bastards," insisted Jack strongly.

"Their government doesn't know the truth," pointed out the General.

"So, we tell them."

"They will have little reason to believe us over their own people," said Hammond, his voice rising in volume slightly so that it almost was in command mode, "especially when what we're forcing them to admit would be a major embarrassment. It will put them at too great a disadvantage in further negotiations."

"Sir, you cannot admit Daniel is guilty," said Jack incredulously.

"Give us some credit, Jack," said Hammond, his tone growing soft, "I will tell them that we did not order any such action and do not condone its obvious intentions, both of which are true. Hopefully, we can lay the groundwork for further diplomatic negotiations which will eventually result in an amicable trade for the naquadria. Ambassador?"

"Yes, General?"

"I want you to deliver the letter," said Hammond, "if you can also convey our…disgust to the Kelownan scientists, off the record, I would appreciate it."

"Consider it done, General," said Harry with a grim smile.

4C3, Republic of Kelowna, Research Facility

He walked through the thick iron door of the room that housed the Kelownan Stargate and clutched in his hand was the letter. For the occasion, he had decided to don his Alteran robes over his chromesuit. He was of course met or rather, intercepted, by Jonas Quinn after not even taking two steps out of the Gate room.

"Greetings, Jonas Quinn," said Harry neutrally, not moving a muscle to bow or shake hands.

"Ambassador Potter," said Jonas, with a similar neutral expression. "I'm surprised to see you."

"I have brought a letter from the Terran government to your leaders," explained Harry, gritting his jaw slightly.

"Ah, it's an apology?" asked Jonas pointedly.

"No, it's not," said Harry with a dangerous glint in his eye, "you see we know that you and the other scientists are lying through your teeth." This seemed to crack Jonas' exterior and his eyes had a sudden haunted look about them.

"How is Dr Jackson?" he asked with surprisingly genuine concern.

"There is nothing that can be done, not even with our medical science, he will die in less than half a day," said Harry grimly.

"I'm…sorry to hear that," said Jonas, his voice slightly shaking with repressed emotion, "two of the scientists in the room are dead already, the other two will be shortly. Their deaths were horrific."

"My commander believes that denying the allegations of sabotage are a waste of time," said Harry stoically.

"Then he is a wise man," said Jonas with a frown. "What I don't understand is why your government is even trying to maintain a relationship with us."

"Because…despite events, the Terran government still wants access to Naquadria, and is willing to negotiate on your terms for it."

"The Naquadria is very rare and extremely valuable to us," said Jonas shaking his head, "I doubt that my government would even meet with you across a negotiating table."

"We know," said Harry, his eyes blazing. "But we still want you to take the letter anyway to your High Minister, he has the final say…after all." He handed the letter over. "However, that is not the only reason why I'm here."

"And that is?"

"To talk to you, off the record," said Harry intently, "you see, SG1 and I; we wont let you tarnish Daniel's name just to save face. In Colonel O'Neill's words 'the Terran government will admit Daniel is guilty over his dead body.' And I know Daniel has given you some idea of the Goa'uld and what they're capable of. And you see the Goa'uld, their thirst for power, insatiable…if word about Naquadria gets out…well, I suppose you'll put up a valiant fight, but you don't stand a chance."

Jonas showed his intelligence when he instantly understood the threat. "Are you telling me…you'll leak our location to the Goa'uld?"

"Now why would we do such a thing?" said Harry with visible faux innocence. "Oh, maybe because we came here in good faith, friendship and the hopes for good trade relations, and instead we get a bunch of lying cowards trying to cover up their incompetence when they 'accidentally' irradiate one of our own."

"What do you want from me?" said Jonas with a harsh whisper.

"Tell the effing truth!" said Harry hotly.

"I can't," said Jonas, who now looked frantic, "even if I wanted to, without the support of the other scientists…"

"Look," interrupted Harry harshly, "we've only arrived at this point because you and your scientist buddies are bloody cowards."

"Ambassador, we desperately need the weapon we're developing. Without it, the Kelownan people could easily fall to our rival nations who are developing their own powerful weapons as we speak. Now, we're willing to do whatever's necessary to ensure our freedom and a lasting peace on this planet."

"Let me impart some hard earned Terran wisdom about weapons of mass destruction," said Harry, now really incensed. "And this is the point that Daniel was trying to make, a weapon of mass destruction can only be used for one thing. Now, you might think it will ensure peace and freedom, but I guarantee you it'll never have the effect you're hoping for until you use it, at least once. For the record, the reason we want Naquadria is because we believe it's the missing link to effectively fighting the Goa'uld. We want it to give our ships greater defense shields, speed and so forth, so that we at least will have a fighting chance. But you go ahead, use the bloody bomb, see what it gets you."

With that Harry turned on his heel and headed back to the Gate room.

By the time he returned to Earth, Daniel's condition had, as expected, only gotten worse. His body was almost completely covered in bandages at a futile attempt to stop the hemorrhaging from his skin, and he was in a perpetual state of pain. The only thing Janet could do was keep giving him sedatives and painkillers to help manage it until…it wasn't an issue. She even mentioned the half-hearted thought to offer Daniel the option of euthanasia…even if it was against her medical ethics. Harry's own private thought was that if medical science could not offer a solution, then it's ethics did not apply. His mind flitted back to the many battles he had helped various planets resist Goa'uld domination…how the mortally wounded that were screaming themselves hoarse in pain on the battlefield would be given a mercy killing by their own compatriots.

He watched from the observation room as Jack was speaking to Daniel in hushed tones about Naquadria, its importance and the appeal to Jonas for the truth to come out.

"How'd he take it?" asked Harry, as Jack entered the observation room after having his talk.

"Ah, you know Daniel," said Jack, "always putting himself in the other guys' shoes. However, he was slipping in and out of consciousness and kept mumbling a name…Omo…Um…"

"Oma?" said Harry in astonishment standing up.

"Yeah. Hey where are you going?"

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"Daniel? Daniel?" said Harry, sitting next to the dying man's bed. His face was now completely covered with bandages, except for holes cut for his eyes and mouth. Daniel turned his head slightly and he was blinking with the effort to remain conscious. Harry stood and spoke softly so only Daniel would hear.

"I wish you to know something, my brother in arms. And yes, I do count you as one, you may not have the training, but the training is nothing. What makes a warrior, is not a weapon or a skill, it's the heart, the will to act, when no one else will. The will to go, where no one else will. You, my friend, are a warrior of the heart. Your words and actions have the same effects as entire armies."

"Know that when you leave us, I believe that we will have lost one of the greatest warriors in the fight against the Goa'uld. I also know that you are speaking with Oma…you can trust her to guide you on the Great Path. Once you have reached it…listen to her, do that thing you do so well, put yourself in her shoes, and then make your own decisions."

Daniel managed to nod through his tremors of pain.

"Good, and God be with you on your Journey, we will meet again…my friend…"

Harry returned to the observation room with the first smile on his face since the incident, but it was bittersweet. Now Teal'C to his turn to pay his last respects, it was at this point that General Hammond entered with of all people…Jonas Quinn.

"What are you doing here?" said Jack with a frown.

"You commander was kind enough to grant me passage," said Jonas with a weary sigh, he looked almost 'soulsick'. "I brought this," he raised a square lead container, "naquadria, took as much as I could." Harry blinked in surprise, he didn't think Jonas would have a change of heart, let alone have one so quickly. It just went to show that the Universe was still capable of surprising him.

"Why?" asked Jack, looking astonished.

"The data recorded during that accident demonstrated the potential power of the weapon unlike anything collected previously. I really don't know what was worse, seeing my colleagues die in the manner they did, or seeing the looks of utter glee on our leaders' faces when they were told the potential power of this weapon. They wanted to know when it could be demonstrated. I told them the truth about what happened."

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_Daniel and Jonas were walking down a corridor in the Research Facility, both talking animatedly about their respective cultures and certain similar turning points in their respective planet's histories._

"_I read that book you gave me," said Jonas nonchalantly._

"_Already?" said Daniel in astonishment; "I just gave it to you last night."_

"_I'm a quick study," said Jonas, "it's how I got my position at my age. It should prove useful in the translations."_

"_I thought you'd be a little more excited."_

l_t's nations will seem insignificant when you find out what's going on…out there."_

"_Till you can give us more details, there's not much else I can do," said Jonas with a shrug._

"_Well, whether you realize it or not, you've probably seen the evidence right here on your own planet. The temple where you found the Gate was obviously occupied by a powerful technologically-advanced race. Now, as far as I can tell from the pictures you've shown me, their civilization was destroyed by a catastrophic explosion."_

"_Our scientists have theorised that an asteroid impacted our continent ten thousand years ago. Now, the fallout from that could have easily buried the civilization at that time," explained Jonas._

"_Or the race that occupied the Gate were experimenting with the very technology you are today and it resulted in disaster."_

"_If what you say is true about the potential enemies out there in our galaxy, we may need these advanced weapons more than ever" Jonas pointed out._

"_I can't deny that, but some very wise people have shown me first hand how a sudden leap in weapons technology by a civilization that's not ready for it can lead to its destruction."_

_The two men walked into the observation room where Tomis was busy observing four other scientists working on the Naquadria device inside the sealed lab._

"_Given the chance then," said Jonas shrewdly, "you would deny us this technology?"_

"_I can't predict what will happen to your people or your planet with or without the weapon," said Daniel with a shrug, "just wish there was another way."_

_One of the radiation-suited scientists in the lab turned to the observation room at that point and reported, "The energy readings are increasing by a power of ten."_

"_Incredible," mumbled Tomis._

_He had no sooner said that when a visible energy wave radiated outward from the device, distorting the light spectrum as it was emitted and crashing against the lead lined walls like an ocean wave on a beach._

"_Did you see that?" said another scientist in amazement._

_One of the instruments in the lab suddenly went crazy as its needles spun up and down and drew energy graphs on the revolving paper to such an extent that it was in effect completely coloring in the paper with ink. The red lights in the lab all burst as another less visible surge shot outward. The control rod of the device was suddenly attracted into the core of Naquadria…and before the scientist managing the control rod could even comprehend what was happening…another energy wave radiated outwards…this time distorting light into the blue end of the spectrum…the scientists all collapsed instantly as their electro-chemical processes was disrupted by the sheer magnitude of the radiation surge. Alarms automatically begin wailing throughout the complex._

"_Get down!" shouted Tomis, forcing Daniel and Jonas to the floor below the line of the glass looking into the lab, "stay away from the glass. The radiation will penetrate the window!"_

"_What's happening?" asked Jonas insistently._

"_The device could explode," winced Tomis. In the lab the instruments begin sparking as the gamma and neutron particles collide with the matter in room, forcing electrons to come into contact with positively charged protons._

"_We have to remove the core!" shouted one of the scientists in the lab, who had amazingly returned to consciousness, but he was extremely weak. Even as he reached up from the floor to the device in an attempt to remove the control rod he collapsed from the effort. Jonas, fully comprehending the danger could only back up against the wall of the observation room as his fear overwhelmed him. Tomis, however, decided to cut his losses and run out of the room._

"_Tomis!" shouted Jonas in anger._

_Daniel had not been idle during all this. He rushed to the other door to the main lab and tried to get in, but an automated lock seemed to have been triggered by the radiation release._

"_Dr Jackson!" shouted Jonas._

_Daniel paid the Kelownan no heed and in frustration backed up against the observation room wall, and swiftly pulled out his Colt Automatic sidearm and took aim at the reinforced window._

"_No! Dr Jackson!" shouted Jonas in fear._

_Daniel visibly grits his teeth and simply begins to pull the trigger. The automatic spits supersonic bullets multiple times. The thick glass is cracked and weakened critically. Without pause Daniel dives through it, getting cut multiple times as it shatters. He lands with a heavy thump on the hard floor of the lab. With no consideration for getting air back in his winded lungs he strains to stand up and reaches the Naquadria device. _

_He takes a deep breath and places his hand on the screwwheel that controls the reaction rod. Only to pull it away with a groan of pain…the rod was extremely hot. He pulls forward his green SGC jumper's sleeve and tries again and pulls…the reaction rod came out painfully slow…finally it was free, but Daniel continues pulling bringing out the entire thing out of its glass sphere…it clanks to floor from his covered hand and he stares around him…breathing harshly…a stunned look on his face._

_Jonas can only look on from above._

"I am ashamed," said Jonas heavily, "that they would not bring themselves to recognize Dr Jackson's heroism. He saved millions of lives."

"That he did," said Harry solemnly, "what will you do now, Jonas Quinn?"

"Obviously, my government does not know I'm here," explained the young man, "I was lucky enough to be able to access our Stargate. If I am caught returning to my planet I will be considered a traitor."

"What do you want then?" asked Jack.

"I don't believe my people will ever truly support a war that leads to any kind of mass destruction," said Jonas, "our leaders just don't see any viable alternative right now. Promise me you will share any defensive technologies with us that will restore the balance of power on my planet."

"Of course," nodded Hammond.

Over the next few hours calls to Jacob Carter/Selmak and Thor were sent out, asking if they could hurry to Earth right away to pay their own last respects to Daniel. Jacob arrived first and spent most of the time consoling his daughter. Thor arrived an hour later with a flash of white light and the musical whine of an Asgard transporter to beam directly into Daniel's sickroom; Thor had blasted his ship all the way from the Ida Galaxy to attend.

"It won't be long now," said Janet, poking her head into the observation room. Harry nodded and followed her out and down into the room. Everyone now stood around Daniel's bed and watched his labored breathing and listened to the low tone of the EKG machine.

"There is but one last thing I could try," said Harry suddenly.

"What?" said Janet incredulously. "Why do you only mention this now?"

"Because it won't save his life, not technically," explained Harry and took a deep breath. He stepped forward and placed his left hand across Daniel's bandaged forehead and his right on his chest. He closed his eyes…there was only darkness behind his eyelids…and then in his mind's eye the world suddenly whirled with violet color and he was standing in what seemed to be a representation of the SGC Gateroom and the Stargate was active.

Standing in front of it was Oma Desala, and at the edge of the ramp Daniel stood, hesitantly.

"Harry?" said Daniel in confusion. "What are you doing here? You're not dead too are you?"

"Umm, no," said Harry, "just checking up on you rather. Just seeing if you need any help getting a boot up to the higher planes."

"Oh, no, I'm going, don't worry I know how, thanks anyway," said Daniel with a grin.

"Oma…" began Harry.

"I know what you are going to say," she said, raising her hand to forestall him, "I will look after him."

"Good," said Harry with a frown, "because I'd hate to have to ascend to only kick your ethereal butt for not doing so."

"Rest assured," said Oma.

"I'm going to miss you guys," said Daniel, his eyes tearing up.

"We will miss you, Daniel," said Harry sadly, "now, don't keep the others in suspense for long about what I tried to do…off with you." Oma abruptly lost her human appearance and went through the Stargate as a being of white energy. Daniel ascended the ramp towards the Stargate but paused at the event horizon and turned back.

"Do you have any idea where I'm going?" asked Daniel.

"Some," said Harry enigmatically, "but I won't ruin the surprise."

Daniel shook his head with a laugh and walked through.

Harry abruptly came back to the real world and jerked his hands off of Daniel as his EKG flatlined and last breath released from the dying man's lungs. But the next moment, Daniel's body glowed a powerful ethereal white and a rushing sound of wind filled the room. Then, the ascended being that was Daniel rose from the bed, and the bandages and linens collapsed as there was no longer a body in them.

The being of energy stopped briefly overhead, everyone looked up with amazement, except for Thor and Harry. The white tendrils of the being seemed to caress the room and its inhabitants as a last goodbye and swiftly rose up and vanished through the ceiling.

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_A/N: Awww, I ascended Daniel. Sorry, but its something from canon that just has to be done. I like Jonas somewhat as well, and I want Harry/Jonas character interaction in the future. Those physicists out there, I know Francium isotopes have relatively short half-life's that makes it prohibitive for practical use. But I've tried to work somewhat realistically around that. Take it as a challenge to come up with something real. I've used Francium instead of Potassium because it's also an alkaline metal but a much heavier element ie, more energy. _


	27. Chapter 27

_**Chapter Twenty-Seven – Renovations**_

**Newly christened **_**TSS Prometheus**_**, High Earth Orbit**

In the sharp prow of the Prometheus, facing forward was a 'seemingly' very large window. It was not a window as such, as merely a false overlay over the bulkhead that projected the forward view to those who would watch. This was not a control center of the ship, it was in fact a large hall sized Rec room for the crew and also doubled as the Galley. None of the crew were here at the moment, as Prometheus did not have a fully fledged crew yet, (she was only half manned) and those who were qualified were hard busy training the influx of new personnel, coming in as much secrecy as possible from all over the world.

The Rec room would be a rather historic area in a few minutes though. Harry grinned at the slowly spinning image of Earth that filled a quarter of the large viewscreen; with him were SG1 (minus an Ascended Daniel), General Hammond, and the newly appointed Chairman of the STO Council. Lieutenant General David Thompson of the British Army (actually a former SAS operative) stood in the rigid military posture of a lifelong professional soldier. He stood at just over five foot eight and looked to be still in good shape for a man in his mid fifties. His face had the hale look of a man who seen much of combat and his dark hazel eyes showed a formidable intelligence at work behind them.

Harry had not spoken much with the de facto 'leader' of the STO (they were both very busy) since his appointment…(that was a story in an of itself, the negotiation war between the various STO member nations for the position of Chair of the Council had left many a bruised ego and sullen political leaderships in its wake)…but he had read the man's file (the entire thing; classified or otherwise) and he thought that there couldn't be a better person to marshal the STO to take the fight to the Goa'uld. Against his enemies he was ruthless and more importantly cunning, his friends and allies were treated as brothers (he already had confessed that he had a healthy respect for the Rebel Jaffa). But like anything, he was human, and he had his foibles and flaws…the worst of which was his tendency to take everything too seriously, and he refused to show that he had a sense of humor. He was even more stoic that Teal'C.

"Are you ready, Mr Ambassador?" said Thompson, with just a hint of cockney in his accent.

"Yes, General," said Harry with a nod, "my 'surprise' is ready and waiting to be unveiled." General Thompson knew what the surprise was; Harry had revealed it only to him thus far and only because of the man's new importance in the scheme of things. Harry tapped the wireless communicator earpiece threaded into his ear. "Colonel Ronson?"

"_Ronson here,_" came the voice of the Captain in his ear.

"We are ready, please set a course for the far side of the moon, and bring us into a high geo-stationary orbit over the equator," instructed Harry.

"_Copy that._"

"We organized this whole thing just for a trip to the moon?" asked Jack with an askance frown. The view swerved and soon the distant white-cratered circle of the moon came into view and began to steadily grow larger.

"No, Jack, the moon is only our first stop," explained Harry patiently.

_Prometheus_ bridged the gap between Earth and it's only natural satellite in less than half a minute, and maneuvered to a relative stop two thousand kilometers from the perpetual dark side of the moon. Harry gave a lop sided grin to Sam and raised a handheld subspace communicator about the size of his fist (it was one based off an Alteran design).

"This is Ambassador Harry Potter to _Tranquility_ Base, come in please," he said. This generated a few quite confused looks among those present, except for Thompson and Teal'C (who would never purposefully look confused if he could ever help it…he merely raised an eyebrow).

"Umm, you do know that you're about thirty odd years late to communicate with Neil Armstrong, don't you?" asked Jack with a bemused grin. "Unless you can actually talk into the past with that doohickey."

"No Jack, I can't communicate with the past," said Harry with an exasperated sigh.

And abruptly, out of nowhere, a familiar voice responded over the communicator in Harry's hand, which allowed everyone to hear. "Ambassador, this is Tranquility Base, we read you and are prepared to receive guests."

"Very good," replied Harry.

"Is that…" said Sam astonishment, her eyes widening.

He merely grinned at her and said, "You may disengage the cloak, Narim." Everyone started at the familiar name and stared at the wallscreen in amazement. For there, in a large crater on the equator of the moon had appeared a sprawling complex of interconnected hardened buildings, shaped like a giant five pointed star when viewed from above. "Say hello, to Tranquility Base, five miles in diameter, capable of housing fifty thousand people in comfort. It's a fully capable military and scientific facility. Ten underground shipyards adjoin the Base, and as you have just seen it's capable of hiding itself very effectively. It can also defend itself through an amalgam of land based weaponry equivalent to the _Prometheus_ and also has an Asgard derived shield all powered by a neutrino-ion generator that the Asgard were going to write-off…which I took the time and effort to fix."

"And yes, this is where the Tollan Remnant have been in hiding."

"Right under everyone's proverbial nose," said Hammond with a chuckle.

"Yes," nodded Harry, "I find that often the best place to hide something, is in plain sight. Now then, let us adjourn to the Ring Room."

**Tranquility Base, Luna (A/N; from now on Earth's moon is referred to as Luna)**

The Rings descended out of the ceiling to land and hover, there was a flash of materialization and for the first time in less than thirty years, Terrans set foot on Luna's surface again. Harry stared around him in interest; he had never been in Tranquility (he'd only done the planning and seen schematics…the work had been done by the automated Asgard fabricators and builders, with the finishing touches added by the Tollans when they arrived) but it looked somewhat bigger than he had imagined it.

The Ring Platform was situated in the Base's Operations Center (Ops), which was nestled in the deepest part of the Base. The Rings was situated on a prominent raised section to the northern end of Ops, and radiating outward in a circle from it was various control stations that regulated and governed the facilities systems (Weapons, Security, Life Support, Power etc.) all of which faced inward to a central desk in the middle of the large circular room. A desk where the Base commander would stand and from where he could easily give orders to the various stations, it also had a large holo display hovering above it, which currently showed an ethereal representation of the Solar System. (Prominent was the green dot hovering over the moon which represented the _Prometheus_, in addition to another collection of dots moving past Saturn, a F-302 squadron on routine patrol. The interior design of Ops and of the whole Base had the feel of a blend between the military practicality of the _Prometheus_ interior and the geometric aesthetic that was prevalent in the _Achilles_.

Currently manning all these stations were Tollans; dressed in the their customary ribbed jackets and angled cut attire. Narim himself, who had been seated in the Life Support station, jumped to his feet.

"Deactivate security field," he ordered the Tollan at the Security station after he scrutinized the new arrivals and was satisfied. There was a flash of blue energy that cocooned the Ring Platform and it visibly retracted itself.

"Greetings," said Narim, "and welcome to Tranquility. The last home of the Tollan. General Thompson, it's an honor to meet you."

"The honor is mine," said Thompson neutrally.

"Major Carter," said Narim, warmth entering his tone.

"Hey Narim," she said and they hugged briefly.

"It's is good to see all of you again," he said to SG1, "Ambassador," he nodded in Harry's direction; they had often communicated over the last few weeks leading up to this, so there was no need for much formalities. Narim guided them to stand at the Command Desk.

"Narim," said General Thompson, "I want to formally, on behalf of the STO and Earth, declare that your people will always be welcome to remain here on Luna, and if full disclosure ever occurs on Earth that the contribution you are making and will make in the future be formally recognized. In addition if any of your people should wish to live out their days on Earth, that they will be given full aid and assistance in doing so."

"Thank you, General," said Narim with a slight bow of his head, "however, my people have after lengthy discourse and debate decided to remain here, united, on Luna…where we can best help in the struggle against the Goa'uld by aiding your capacity to fight them."

"We thank you in turn for helping us," said Thompson. "To that end, I hear from Ambassador Potter that you have news?"

"Yes…we have just finished a large production run of the AHM-1B (Anti-Ha'tak Missile). We have also studied the data sent to us by the Ambassador on Naquadria, and we believe it possible to synthesize in a laboratory, though some further research is required into engineering failsafes to prevent an accident similar to the one that occurred a few weeks ago on Kelowna…my sincerest sympathies on the loss of Dr Jackson…" his tone turning sad.

"Thanks," said Sam softly, her eyes twinkling in the light. It seemed that whenever she was reminded of Daniel that she would start to get tears in her eyes. It didn't really matter to her that technically Daniel wasn't dead…Harry thought that intellectually she understood that, but her heart was a completely different story, and Samantha Carter's heart was deeply affected by the departure of Daniel Jackson to the higher planes.

"In the meantime, we can use the amount of Naquadria you already have in your possession to enhance the AHMs even further, that's relatively easy to do and only requires a few days," said Narim. "We can also begin the transfer of the new ordnance to the _Prometheus_ immediately."

"Very well," nodded Thompson, and looked with a sigh around him. This was a rare event by all accounts for the General. The scale of the task ahead must've seemed daunting.

"Is something the matter, General?" asked Harry.

"Yes and no," said Thompson, "just thinking of the headache I'm having trying to find enough people to man _Prometheus_, let alone _Daedalus_, _Odyssey_ and _Apollo_. Now I also have the equivalent of a military colony on Luna, and an even larger shipyard than A-51."

"Do you not have the resources to employ so many?" asked Narim worriedly.

"Resources are not the issue, as I said, its people and training them," said Thompson stoically, "because of the secrecy, only certain personnel in the civilian and military establishments can be recruited. They also have to be carefully scrutinized and researched before the ugly truth of our Galaxy can be disclosed to them."

"Ah, to be sure they don't turn around and betray the 'ugly truth' as you say, to your own news media," reasoned Narim thoughtfully. "Well, we can't help in regard to your selection process, but perhaps I can send some of my people to help with the training?"

"That would be greatly appreciated," said General Thompson.

While Prometheus was loading the new ordnance into her magazines and armory, Narim led his visitors on a brief tour of Tranquility. It was much like Area 51, only larger by a few orders of degrees. The scientific and fabrication equipment was much more advanced as well, which was mostly thanks to the Tollan's efforts and Harry's provision of an Asgard matter-energy fabricator. The military facilities included a hangar bay for F302s double the size as that on a DC ship, hall like briefing rooms, CO and enlisted quarters, Rec rooms, and so forth.

In the Civilian-Scientific sections of the Base, the most impressive feature was a large Arboretum with infant plants clustered together and rolling lawns of grass stretching across an area about as large as a football field, specially configured lights provided a realistic day-night cycle and even emitted the artificial equivalent of true sunlight. The Tollans whose passion was for Botany could be found hard at work here.

All to soon for the group the _Prometheus_ radioed that she was finished with her task of loading the new AHMs. Narim escorted them back to Ops and they said goodbyes.

As soon as they were back on board, Harry instructed Ronson to set another course…this time for an orbit over Mars.

"You're not telling me we have another 'secret' Base on Mars," said Jack seriously. "We don't, do we?" he asked suddenly unsure about complaining about it. Harry left the man on tenterhooks by merely smiling enigmatically. Clearly the Colonel was conflicted by his thought 'that it would be cool' to have a base on Mars, versus the thought that they couldn't possibly find people to man such a Base…not without full disclosure.

"No Jack," said Harry eventually looking at the others in the _Prometheus_ Rec room. "We don't have a Base on Mars." Harry heard the tiniest of relieved sigh coming from General Thompson. "Yet," he finally qualified.

"Huh?" said Jack, looking confused.

"You'll see," said Harry, turning back to the wallscreen. It took twenty-one minutes for _Prometheus_ to navigate between Earth and Mars, given their relative distances apart at this time of year. Time, which the group passed by either talking (Generals Thompson and Hammond softly speaking about things Generals speak about), making use of the table games (Teal'C and Jack played Ping Pong – and rather surprisingly Jack gave a good accounting of himself, almost beating the Jaffa.)

Sam had cornered Harry to talk about Tranquility at a table after they had served some drinks from the self-serving bar (the Rec room would mainly be Pilot Country for off-duty pilots – there was no actual alcohol though) for themselves.

"What else are the Tollans working on?" she asked curiously.

"Not just weapons," said Harry eventually, thinking carefully on what to reveal, "they're also putting together a medicinal and medical technology package that can be carefully rolled out on Earth." Sam raised her eyebrows, looking intrigued. "Obviously not everything they know, some of the medicines are still well beyond Earth's organic and inorganic technical capabilities to produce. However, off the top my head I can tell you that the majority of genetic disorders and diseases are going to go off the 'incurable' list in a few years, in addition to a few of the more nasty viruses that are still prevalent."

"What about affordability?" asked Sam.

Harry knew instantly what she was actually asking and worried about, "the day that any company gets one of these new medicines on a patent, is the day that I ask the Asgard to dump an asteroid worth of Gold onto the world market." She blinked and tried to comprehend that statement.

"An asteroid of Gold?" she said incredulously.

"Of course," said Harry nonchalantly, "only Earth as far as I've seen of the Galaxy and beyond ascribes as much value to Gold. The Goa'uld uses it, but only for ship decoration. The Asgard uses it here and there in their technology but it's worthless to them otherwise. I made this threat quite clear to the STO Council, these new medicines and everything that could save a life will be generic medicines under government control. If I catch a whisper of a drug company trying to patent one of these, not only will I dump the world Gold market, I'll beam every member of the offending company out of their premises and place them somewhere else…then I'll dematerialize every piece of property the company owns."

"Damn," she said in awe, "that's one hell of a big stick in the ol' 'stick and carrot' approach." Harry grinned evilly at her.

"You should've seen the faces of the politicians in the STO that I knew had private sector interests," said Harry wickedly, "like children who had their visions of many lollipops in the future ripped away."

"_Ambassador, we are in a standard orbit around Mars_," came the voice of Ronson, interrupting any further conversation.

"Thank you, Colonel," said Harry, tapping his ear radio. The group in the Rec room stopped what they were doing and stared at the wallscreen. The Red Planet dominated the view; Harry could even see Olympus Mons (a volcano twice the size of Mt. Everest) with red tinted winds growling down from it at speeds that made any similar phenomenon on Earth pale in comparison. Many of them realized the historic moment, the first humans to achieve orbit around Mars, and Colonel Ronson even allowed for a minute of silence to allow the now multinational crew to partake in any prayers they wished to offer.

"Do you detect any ships, Colonel?" asked Harry with a frown, after the minute was over.

"_Negative, Ambassador, sensors are clear_," reported Ronson.

"He's late, he should've been in orbit already," commented Harry worriedly.

"Who's late?" asked Jack.

And as if the Fates had been listening and waiting for Jack's question, multiple large Hyperspace windows opened a million kilometers to starboard from the _Prometheus_. Squirting back into real space came gigantic ship after ship after ship, until a hundred and twenty vessels hovered in space over Mars.

Everyone was stunned, except for Harry, who merely smiled in satisfaction. The Milky Way was treated to a sight it had not seen for many hundreds of years. A fully-fledged Asgard Task Force; it was composed of twenty of the 'smaller' nine hundred meter long Science vessels, whilst sixty visibly upgraded _Beliskner_ class vessels hovered in a covering wedge formation over them. And forming the tip of the spear in the Task Force was forty gleaming chrome, one point two kilometers long _O'Neill_ class Battlecruisers.

"My goodness!" said Sam, gasping in awe.

"Holy Hannah! That's one big damn fleet!" said Jack with wide impressed eyes. Hammond was speechless. Thompson merely regarded the ships with an appreciative eye.

The musical chime of an Asgard transportation beam filled the air and Thor in his control throne promptly materialized after a white flash of light.

"Greetings," said the diminutive Asgard in usual casual tones.

"Thor! Buddy!" said Jack with a happy smile and gestured to the fleet on the screen, "like your rides."

Thor merely tilted his head in acknowledgement and turned to face Harry and General Thompson. "I apologize for my lateness. But I had to thwart an attempted attack by Anubis on an Asgard Protected Planet."

"Did you have any problems with the new Goa'uld defenses?" asked Harry with a raised eyebrow.

"I will admit that the battle took longer than normal," said the Supreme Commander of the Asgard Fleet. "But largely thanks to the data provided by your encounters with the new motherships, we have been able to modify our weapons to compensate. However, even if we did not have that data, the _O'Neill_ class would've still defeated them swiftly." Everyone in the room could feel Jack's ego inflating.

"Oh, I would've loved to see the snake's face when he saw that fleet," said Jack with appreciation.

"Only three _O'Neill_ class ships were used to drive off the Goa'uld," reported Thor, "we felt it wiser to conceal the Task Force's presence in this Galaxy for as long as possible."

"Aaaaah," moaned Jack in disappointment, and Hammond gave his 2IC a visibly annoyed glance.

"General Thompson," said Thor turning to the Chairman of the STO. "As a duly appointed leader for your race's interstellar efforts, I've come with a request to you on behalf of the Asgard."

"And what is this request 'exactly'?" asked Thompson pointedly.

"The Asgard would like permission to establish a Base of Operations in the Sol System, more specifically on the planet you call, Mars, from which this Task Force will operate from."

"And what is the purpose of this Task Force?" asked Thompson.

"To remove the 'bluff' aspect of the Protected Planets Treaty," said Thor with Harry could only describe as satisfaction. "The Task Force is here to properly enforce the Treaty, as it should've been all those centuries ago, which the war with the Replicators has distracted us from. And it is largely thanks to your efforts that the Asgard are in a position to do so again. It is my pleasure to report to you that the Replicator scourge in the Ida Galaxy has been completely cleansed."

"Wow," said Sam blinking, "but how can you be sure?"

"Your discovery of the Android Reese," explained Thor, "the 'mother' you could say, of all Replicators. Embedded in her programming was a command code that we discovered would influence all Replicators if it was broadcasted through subspace."

"What was the command?" asked Hammond curiously.

"To come forth," said Thor, his black eyes glistening with triumph. "It worked and all the Replicators all over the Ida Galaxy obeyed the call mindlessly. They all congregated on a single planet we had specially selected for this purpose, and they were annihilated when every ship that could be spared fired their Replicator Disruptors at the planet."

"Congratulations my friend," said Harry with a relieved sigh.

"It could not have been done without your race's help," said Thor bowing his large head at them. "And now we have a very large debt to repay, the Asgard civilization is now in a recovery and rebuilding phase, and we have set aside this Fleet to secure the Milky Way Galaxy again."

"Can you assure me that you won't be detected establishing this Base by anyone on Earth save for the STO?" asked Thompson.

"Asgard ships and installations employ multiple devices which when activated, shield it from detection by sensors in use by any known race," explained Thor. "The _Prometheus_ can detect the Fleet only because of the Asgard sensors it is using. _Tranquility_ can because its systems was designed and constructed en large by Ambassador Harry."

"Indeed," nodded Thompson, "well, I can provisionally grant you permission then to use Mars. The STO Council will need to ratify that decision, but I have to sweeten the pot for them to make this work. Can we agree that in the future, when you decide your mission has been accomplished, that Earth can take over any facility you build. You can take any advanced technologies you don't want out of your hands with you," he further qualified when he saw Thor begin to frown.

"That will perhaps be acceptable," said Thor eventually, "it will be matter for the Asgard High Council to collectively decide in the future…however, if you can further prove yourselves in our future collective endeavors then I'm sure that the High Council will make a decision in your favor."

**SGC, Earth. Daniel's Office**

Harry entered what most of the base personnel dubbed 'the Museum'. For that was what Daniel's office looked like; though in his own opinion it looked like a hybrid between a museum, library and hurricane of loose notes, papers and post-its dotting everything. The place even had that smell of old paper that permeated the air. It was a monument to the past and the people that lived in those times. He was not surprised to see Sam in the office. She hadn't noticed him yet and her tears and sniffs flowed unrestrained…she was mourning.

She picked up Daniel's glasses that lay discarded on his desk, from which she moved to run her hand over a journal.

Harry knocked once on the door. Sam was startled and she abruptly faced away from him while drying her face off with her sleeve.

"I'm sorry to intrude," said Harry softly, "but I'm afraid we were of one mind at the same time."

"What?" she said, not understanding, blinking her eyes clear.

"I also wished to visit this place," said Harry, walking towards the large desk in the middle and running a finger over an ornate African style wood mask and breathing in the air while closing in his eyes, "to remind myself of him, what he stood for."

"Glad I'm not the only one feeling like this," she said miserably, staring at the books on the table. "Can you believe that Colonel O'Neill has requested that SG1 remain on the active team list?"

"Everyone grieves in their own way, Sam," said Harry pointedly, "he is Special Ops, and you should know what their mentality is to emotions such as that; something that is to be bottled and only opened when off-duty and in private. He is treating Daniel as he would when a close friend or colleague dies in the line of duty."

"I knew there was a reason I didn't go for SpecOps," she said with a sigh.

"But you must also understand that when Daniel ascended he finally understood something that I hope everyone one day truly comprehends."

"And that is?"

"That death is not something to be feared, it's necessary for life itself to exist," he said solemnly, "it is but the parting of the veil of this existence and moving beyond. Those who achieve ascension merely go up a step on the ladder, while those who do not, moves beyond the ladder entirely."

"It almost sounds like a normal death is better then," said Sam in confusion.

"Yes and no," said Harry wryly, "there are no absolutes when moving in the higher planes. There is nothing so arbitrary as right or wrong, better or worse…it is beyond description with words. There is only one concept that carries from our present existence to the beyond…the only thing that is, at the end of the day in our control…whether we are good or evil."

**SGC, Earth, Briefing Room 2**

Harry took his designated seat next to the Podium where General Hammond was standing and addressing the theater sized room in front of him. All one hundred seats in the sloping room were filled with the assembled field commanders and their respective 2ICs of Earth's Special Forces regiments from amongst the STO member nations; the US Army's legendary Delta Force, the British SAS, the French COS, Russia's Spetznas GRU were amongst the most notables present, but they were not the only ones.

The men and women (although mostly men) had been given their baptism of fire over the past month; introduction to the big, bad Galaxy out there, and how to survive it, Stargate operations, the weapons they would see, use and in most cases those that will be used against them, the Goa'uld, the ships, the technology they would encounter and so forth. A learning process that gave these men and women a whole new respect for what the SGC had done and continues to do.

"…as you can see, there have been changes at the SGC, since you first visited the facility little more than a month ago," said General Hammond. "The very Briefing Room you are in just received its last coat of paint two days ago. Sub-levels One through Eighteen, which used to belong to NORAD (NORAD had moved to Peterson AFB), have been taken over to accommodate the increased force levels that will be present in the SGC. Numerous other advancements have finally been installed; these include the Firestorm Shields that will further reinforce the Blast Doors, and the Stargate's Iris."

"However, to the main point of this briefing, your various units will be deployed in Forward Offensive Operations against the Goa'uld, with a single aim…to re-ignite the Feudal rivalry between the various Goa'uld System Lords, which has largely been all but stamped out thanks to Anubis. To carry this briefing further with the pertinent details I will hand you over to Ambassador Potter." Hammond vacated the podium and Harry promptly took his place.

"Good evening," said Harry stoically, "the Tok'ra have finally managed to reestablish some order in their ranks after their defeat at Ravana. And with it, our ear on internal Goa'uld politics has returned. It seems that the System Lords have become polarized into two factions since Anubis' reappearance. The majority are naturally behind Anubis and this faction has largely stopped making war on one another. However, we are lucky in that Anubis has not managed to unite the Goa'uld fully."

"Lord Yu, leads an opposing faction of all the minor Goa'uld, this minority faction has in the last few months stepped up its attacks on Anubis. Our goal is this; attack the various Goa'uld supporting Anubis, but it must appear to be another Goa'uld within the same faction doing so. This will create dissent in Anubis' corner and hopefully cause a parting of the ways and maybe even outright war within the faction."

A Major from Spetsnaz raised his hand. "And zjust how will we azhieve zis?"

"There's a simple answer to that," said Harry and gestured to his right. Teal'C strode into the room in full Jaffa armor, his steel boots making that eerie hollow marching noise that never failed to intimidate. "You will all be going to Jaffa Boot camp at the Alpha Site. Where you will learn to at least portray Jaffa as accurately as you can manage in the time available. The SGC has in its past collected a lot of spoils from the Goa'uld, the biggest of which was a fully armed and equipped Goa'uld mothership. You will be issued your own sets of captured Jaffa armor and weaponry and will receive temporary tattoos marking you as belonging to the various System Lords allied with Anubis…from there you will engage in battle against certain System Lords representing other System Lords…and hopefully we'll have an easier time of it when Earth decides to wave the flag and strike out in its own right."

"And rest assured that once Anubis' coalition has dissolved, that SpecOps will become the blade of Earth's spear on the ground and through the Stargate."

"Who'll be the tip?" asked an SAS Operative.

"SG1 through fifteen," said Harry, "will continue to function as the Recon element of STO ground ops, whereas you guys will be SG sixteen through forty…the heavy hitters who gets called in when the proverbial shit hits the fan. And trust me, out there, beyond the Stargate, it always hits."

"Any questions?"

88888888888888888888888888888

Walking up the steep circular staircase from Stargate Control into Briefing Room 1, Harry was treated to a strange sight. General Hammond, Sam and Jack was seated in their usual spots around the table, and Janet in her customary white Doctor's coat sat next to them; the unusual thing about the scene was that Sam was wearing mirrored sunglasses (even though she was twenty eight floors below ground), Jack had alarmingly less hair than when he saw him last and looked like he had plugs in his ears from the firing range, Janet was wearing a pair of dark gloves, and amazingly it seemed as if General Hammond had lost almost half of the fat around his waist.

"I'm almost afraid to ask," said Harry blinking owlishly at them, and taking a seat. There seemed to be a whirlwind of emotions going across their faces; though they seemed to be very uncomfortable and shifting constantly in their seats.

"Shhhhh!" said Jack irritation on his face. "Not so loud! Lower your voice."

"Ok," said Harry softly, his eyes growing alarmed. "What's going on?" he whispered.

"I can bench press as much as Teal'C!" blurted Jack, his face shining with satisfaction.

"I can see in the pitch dark, again," said Sam with a sigh of irritation, gesturing to her sunglasses. "And I can do complex Base-8 math in my head without writing it down or needing a computer."

"A residual effect of the Atonieks armbands?" asked Harry speculatively. _Oh boy, its finally happening_, he thought.

"Dr Frasier doesn't think so," said Hammond with a frown.

"Why not?"

"Because the effects are not confined to just Major Carter and the Colonel," said Janet, taking a deep fortifying breath. "I myself have seemed to develop a similar extreme ability, I was treating a staff weapon burn a Marine received after that firefight against the Goa'uld two days ago…I'm dressing it and the next thing I know he's looking at me in amazement…he told me the pain was gone, I lift the bandage…" she shook her head, "…the wound was gone."

"And I woke up this morning," said General Hammond, his tone incredulous, "missing forty pounds of weight around my belly. And I haven't felt this energized since I was in my mid twenties. I had to dig out my old smaller uniform shirts before coming to work."

"General Hammond and I are not the only ones," said Janet, "I've had numerous visits from various Base personnel reporting all a manner of 'improvements' that have suddenly manifested themselves; spontaneous weight loss, increased strength, dramatically improved senses and so on, I'm still cataloguing them, but my duty nurse tells me, she's received emails, calls and more visits over the last few hours from almost everyone on Base, and from personnel off duty."

"So if it's something contagious, the milk has been spilled already," said Harry with a frown.

"At the moment, my only theory is that somehow the Atoniek armband nanovirus that allowed these abilities to come forward the last time, somehow survived within the Colonel and the Major, despite their own bodies developing anti-bodies to it, the virus could've adapted itself in the meantime and spread among the base personnel and only now manifested," said Janet, with a frown, shaking her head.

"You don't sound to confident in that theory?" said Harry.

"It's all speculation," nodded Janet, "I don't know if it's a virus at all, it's the only thing we've come across in the past that is remotely similar, the cause of this could be something else entirely. I'll need to do a complete battery of tests on everyone manifesting an 'improvement' or enhanced ability, but that's a lot of people…"

"Find out, Doctor," ordered Hammond, "until we know the cause of all this, I can't authorize any further Gate activity."

"I can also perhaps help those who find their 'ability' a bit unmanageable," said Harry carefully, staring at Sam, pointedly.

"How?" asked Jack curiously. Harry looked around for anything suitable, and settled on the remote that controlled the wall display. He could do this without anything as grand as a gesture, but he wanted to make a point. He held out his hand towards the remote and it promptly flew across the room and he caught it effortlessly.

"I trust I've displayed my bona fides," said Harry wryly, staring at their gaping mouths and awed faces.

**VIP Visitor Quarters, SGC**

He knocked on the door.

"Come in."

Harry entered what had been Jonas Quinn's place of residence ever since he had 'defected' one could say with the Naquadria. It was as well appointed as a room in the Base could be, which wasn't saying much. It was just a rather large room with a comfortable double bed, artwork adorned the walls and had its own dinner table, television set, music stereo, with a small bookcase filled with modern fiction.

Jonas had dressed in a spare casual green SGC uniform and was sitting against his bed's headboard with his nose glued in a book. The stereo was playing some classical music…Bach.

"Ah, Ambassador," said Jonas, getting up after marking his place in the book. Harry glanced at the cover.

"_The Hunt for Red October_," commented Harry with a grin.

"It's a strangely fitting book for someone in my position to read," said Jonas with a rueful chuckle.

"I take it Marko Ramius is your favorite character then?"

"Not my favorite but the parallels between me and him are undeniable," said Jonas, sobering.

"That they are," agreed Harry. "Anyway, I'm here to inform you that you've passed your psych evaluation, and you've been granted provisional clearance to move about the base freely." He handed a pass card to the Kelownan. "Now that will get you access to areas for your current clearance level; which as you can see is 'Delta' and below. Areas with Alpha, Beta and Charlie designations you can only enter with an escort and a damn good reason."

"Good, thanks," said Jonas and pinned the keycard to his collar. "To be honest, I was rather confused at the questions your Intelligence Agency asked me, I was expecting to be interrogated on my planet's various militaries and so forth."

"Why would we do that?" said Harry.

"I guess because that's what my country's military would do," said Jonas uncomfortably.

"Let me put it this way, Terra, (that's the official name now of our planet) and its allies, are fighting a war of Galactic proportions against an implacable enemy with superior numbers, technology and territory on its side. Now…do you think, beyond the implications of Naquadria, that we would have any other interest in your planet?"

"No, not when you put it that way," said Jonas quietly.

"But," said Harry his tone softening, "you have just as much right to fight against the Goa'uld as I have, for they would enslave your world, strip it until they were sure they've gotten every gram of Naquadria from its soil and leave it in ruins. So with that in mind, follow me."

He waved off the SF that was now free from his minding duties of Jonas, and escorted the Kelownan to Daniel's Office.

"This is Dr Jackson's office," said Jonas not a few moments after entering the 'museum' like room.

"How did you guess?" asked Harry curiously.

"He briefly described it to me," shrugged Jonas. "So why am I here?"

"You told Dr Jackson that you wished to see what was 'out there' through the Stargate," Harry gestured around the room, "this is the one place where you can do that whilst still remaining on this planet. In here are all Dr Jackson books, research notes, tools, and artifacts that he has collected over six years of Gate Travel and exploration. And this is just the tip of the iceberg; there are at least three large storage rooms worth of backlogged artifacts that Daniel hasn't got around to catalogue yet. I've also unlocked his desktop computer and given you an ID on the Base Data Archive so you access anything pertaining to what you research."

"Ah…I've never used one of those before…" said Jonas pointing to the plasma screen of the computer.

"…there is a user manual next to the screen," interrupted Harry, pointing to the colorful book. "However, I suggest you start with this…" he handed Jonas a large canary yellow book.

"'_Computers for Dummies_'," read Jonas awkwardly from the cover.

"Don't feel bad," said Harry in amusement, "there are countless people on Terra, mostly from before computers became in widespread use, whom still don't have the first clue about the things. Ask Colonel O'Neill, he'll say a Megabyte is something you do when you eat a large hamburger."

Obviously Jonas didn't get the small joke. "I don't understand."

"That's what the book is for."

The Kelownan nodded and sat down on a nearby chair, looking around, and then suddenly asked, "Why?"

"Why am I doing this?"

Jonas nodded.

"Mainly to give you a job, keep you busy, I can't imagine it must be nice staying cooped up in the VIP quarters all day with an armed guard." Jonas nodded. "And…I'll be frank, SG1, has gone through four 'replacements' for Dr Jackson's position already. They just can't find anyone to fill the void adequately."

"And you think I can?" said Jonas incredulously. "I'm the last person that Colonel O'Neill would want on his team. He thinks I'm a liar…he wouldn't trust me to watch his back in a million years. And for that matter why are you seemingly in my corner? I recall you calling me a lying coward."

"Never, say never," admonished Harry with an enigmatic grin. "And lets just say you redeemed yourself to me when you came forward and told the truth, and don't think I'm blind to the sacrifice you made. You left behind the cushy job with the High Minister and threw yourself at the mercy of an unknown, superior, foreign power…that is hardly the action of a coward. As for Colonel O'Neill, he's by nature and training suspicious of anyone and anything he doesn't know…and he doesn't know you. Teal'C, like me, already somewhat respects you. He's been where you are…he also threw himself at the mercy of Terra after he, out of the blue, defected and helped SG1 escape from Apophis' clutches… Major Carter, well, she was a really close friend of Dr Jackson…and where he is concerned her heart is her driving force, so you'd need to prove your worth to her in some way."

"I also think your 'Quick Study' and eidetic memory would be an excellent asset on any SG team. So there you have it…take this opportunity, prove you have what it takes…or prove my initial assessment of you." Harry gave him a meaningful look and left a very thoughtful Kelownan in his wake.

'…_hospitals, clinics and specialist centers all around the globe are being inundated with people requesting answers and demanding tests to determine how they could've suddenly 'developed' these 'abilities' spontaneously. In addition, people who've suffered from, certain behavior, eating, and other disorders have suddenly been 'cured'._

_There has been no official word from the government and the White House released a public statement that the causes of the phenomena are being investigated with all possible speed…"_

"…_joining us now is Dr Allan Hathaway, a Neurologist from Johns Hopkins. Here to report on the latest results of the medical communities search for answers into what is now being called 'The Great Leap.' Dr Hathaway?"_

"_Thank you Julia. Now, it's a common fact that humans only use a certain percentage of their 'brains', so to speak. This generally hovers between five and ten percent. Einstein himself is believed to have been hovering around maybe twelve percent, but we don't know for sure. This is Thermographic scan I've done of my own brain…I did it in a routine exam of myself a year ago, and now this is one taken just yesterday…now…on your screen you can see the visible difference…"_

"…_you were at eight percent but now you're at twenty two!"_

"_Exactly, we still don't know enough about the brain for me to say what this will mean for me, I haven't manifested an 'ability' yet. But judging from what we've been seeing, it may only be a matter of when, not if. We've also noticed that there are physiological differences as a result of this 'Great Leap'. People's senses have started to become hyperacute, their base line strength has increased to various degrees, I've also seen patients who had been suffering from a cold or flu suddenly report that their symptoms have disappeared, this could mean that our Immune systems have 'Leaped' as well. Although I'll leave that to the Immunologists to determine."_

"_I also want to caution people that the benefits of Leap may not come without cost."_

"_What do you mean, Doctor?"_

"_We most likely will need to consume more energy to accommodate these changes, in other words, we'll need more food than normal, and it would be highly unwise to skip meals. I can personally say, my appetite has definitely increased."_

"_I'm sure I speak for everyone when I ask, does Johns Hopkins have any idea what are the root causes of the Leap?"_

"_At the moment, we only have theories, you must understand that the 'Leap' affected those parts of the body that are still a great mystery to medical science, our DNA and the Brain. We're making headway with DNA with the Human Genome Project, but understanding what part of DNA does this or that, will require centuries of research._

_That being said, the general theory on a scientific cause for this is that we are experiencing the evolution of Modern Man that we know today into something new. We have now moved from Modern Man, to Superior Man. Homo Sapien to Homo Superior."_

"_Thank you, Dr Hathaway for your time."_

"_Thank you, Julia."_

"_This is Julia Donovan for Inside Access. And we will see you tomorrow for more breaking news as it happens."_

Harry pushed a button on the remote. The TV shut down. He stopped for a moment and his shoulders seemed to be slumping as if an incredible weight had fallen on them. He stared up at the ceiling, through the twenty subterranean floors of the SGC and imagined all the amazed and frightened people on the planet.

He had done it.

There was no turning back.

He hoped he had done the right thing.

_A/N: 'The Hunt for Red October' by Tom Clancy, is his book and a product of his imagination, not mine. Just in Case. Whoah! Major AU territory coming up! What will the effects of this be?For those who haven't guessed 'TSS' is acronymn for 'Terran Star Ship'. _


	28. Chapter 28

_**Chapter Twenty-Eight – Redemption**_

The First Prime rushed through the trees.

Branches clipped and snapped as the tall strong armored figure powered his way through the forest.

His heavy breathing and racing heart was nearly all he heard as he turned and aimed with the long staff weapon.

"**Kree Jaffa!**" he shouted, as his fellow warriors rushed past his position. He fired the weapon five times, and unerringly each orange bolt hit an enemy Jaffa with precision.

When more plasma bolts from his comrades joined the First Prime's weight of fire, he ran further on in a zig zag pattern to join up with them again.

"**Kree shal hur Chappa'ai!**"

His fellows understood immediately and the group of warriors divided itself into two teams. One would lay down fire on their pursuers, while the other would leapfrog them under cover of fire.

In such a way, the First Prime and his column of fifteen warriors fought a retreating evasion while their enemy…superior in numbers, tried their best to box them in the forest before they could reach the Chappa'ai.

Finally they reached the clearing where the ancient stone ring was erected. The fifteen warriors formed a horseshoe formation that secured the Dailing pedestal and the Chappa'ai itself. They began to systematically lay cover fire through the gaps in the trees. They did this to discourage their pursuers from trying to charge them, as much as to kill them.

The First Prime paused at the Dailing device and turned towards the east, where a large Goa'uld pyramid jutted out into the sky not two kilometers away. He raised his hand towards a button on his Naquadah black gauntlet and pressed a large button on it. A frequency was transmitted. He didn't even pause to look at the results of what he had done and began to immediately push the sequence that would activate the Chappa'ai to establish a portal towards their base.

He had barely pushed the fifth button when an enemy Jaffa managed to get off a shot despite the suppression barrage. It hit true and one of his warriors fell backward…dead…before he even hit the ground.

The First Prime frowned and turned his eyes to slits to shield it from the dust that the sudden explosive shockwave of air from the multiple explosions coming from the pyramid in the distance. He pressed the seventh button and pushed the large yellow orb in the center of the console. He pushed another button on his com gauntlet to send another special transmission through the Chappa'ai. He then reached into a pocket and threw what seemed to be a plastic ball onto the console. Its true nature became apparent when the ball burst apart and covered the consoles buttons in a sticky black paint.

"**Kree!**" shouted the First Prime, hefting his staff weapon and shooting into the treeline; which was by then literally shrouded by smoke from the multiple small fires that had started as a result of the firefight. Two warriors immediately grabbed their fallen comrade and were the first through the even horizon.

Another of the First Prime's warriors was struck by enemy fire, but it was not a fatal wound. He rushed forward and grabbed the injured warrior and pulled, all the while controlling his staff with the other hand and kept firing. He handed off the wounded to another warrior whom promptly went through the Chappa'ai.

The First Prime stayed until every last member of his column was through the Gate, he barely had time to see the first of the enemy break through the treeline…when he made that final step through.

He was abruptly disembodied and flew through the twisting nether of the Universe.

He appeared on the other side and shouted towards the men in the Control Room.

"Raise shield, cut power to the Gate!"

Within the eye of the Stargate, red energy suddenly appeared in front of the event horizon…creating a stark contrast between the blue of the 'water' and red of the shield. And just in time, as a staff blast was absorbed harmlessly that had traveled through the subspace path.

The blue of the event horizon abruptly vanished.

The First Prime turned to regard the scene of organized chaos, as the medical team got to work on the injured warrior…struggling to remove the cumbersome Jaffa armor. He grimly saw that the dead warrior was already in a black body bag and being moved out of the Gate room. He closed his eyes and abruptly his features shifted from that of the First Prime of Baal back to his normal face.

He walked down the ramp and was met by Teal'C and General Hammond.

"Were you successful?" asked Teal'C gravely.

"Olokun's pyramid was successfully destroyed," said Harry with a frown as the Medics rushed out of the Gate room with the wounded 'undercover' soldier on a gurney. "And we left our 'evidence' of Baal's culpability behind and Olokun's Jaffa definitely thought we were Baal's Jaffa."

"Let's just hope we didn't kill Olokun himself," said Hammond, frowning after he said it, as if he couldn't believe he would actually want a Goa'uld alive.

"The Pyramid we attacked was an important command hub for that sector of Olokun's domain, General," said Harry. "But not important to rate a visit from the snake himself."

"Well, that was the fourth attack we carried out for Baal, let's hope the Tok'ra can get back to us soon on whether we were successful in creating a bit of division in Anubis' ranks," said General Hammond. "Report to the Infirmary, Ambassador, debrief is at 1600."

"Yes, General," nodded Harry walking off with a nod of acknowledgement to Teal'C and handing the staff weapon to the Quartermaster sergeant.

**SGC, Earth, Briefing Room 1**

These days the wall screen was constantly on various News channels around the world. There wasn't an hour that went by without some or other story of an event related to the 'Great Leap'. Whether it was because someone used his or her enhanced abilities to save someone from some sort of accident, or prevent a crime, and on the other side of the scale, how crimes were reportedly perpetrated because of, or with an enhanced ability.

One report stated that a little girl had managed to escape her abusive household by phase shifting herself through the locked door and even her surprised drunk of a father. Video cameras in a prison cell showed how an apprehended suspect had done a similar escape routine by walking through the prison wall. Another man had to be apprehended by an Army Nuclear Emergency Search Team, when it was discovered that he could emit various frequencies of radiation at will…however, the man in question had very little control over it. He had accidentally irradiated his own neighborhood while he was having a nightmare as he slept…thankfully it was not a lethal dose and everyone was being treated.

Harry sighed and switched off the wall screen and stretched…thankful that he was finally back in his comfortable chromesuit and out of the bulky Jaffa armor. Generals Hammond and Thompson, Janet, Jack, Sam and Teal'C entered the Briefing Room and took their seats. Sam still wore her sunglasses as despite Harry working with her over the past few days she had yet to make any significant progress in regaining control over the frequencies in which her eyes saw at. In contrast, Jack had managed to gain a grip on his own enhanced senses.

"Thank you everyone for gathering on such short notice," said Hammond. "But Dr Frasier has finished her preliminary report on the 'Great Leap' and its consequences for this command. General Thompson is here so he can make a direct report to the STO Council on this matter. Dr Frasier…"

"Thank you, Sir," said Janet. "Now, I began with an inductive approach to this situation, since whatever caused this is something that has eluded every standard medical test we have. So I started with the effects of the 'Great Leap' and tried to catalogue the various 'abilities' we have discovered those on Base have developed." She grabbed the remote and the wall screen changed to show a pie chart diagram of the Base population. "We have, out of the now one thousand five hundred base personnel, one hundred and two with various degrees of 'Telekinesis', one hundred and sixty with Touch Healing (although this is unconfirmed), twenty have shown 'Pyrokinesis' (controlled fire), two hundred can Phase Shift themselves, thirty can seemingly manipulate electrical energies, three hundred can shift their vision into different areas of the light spectrum, the balance of everyone reports massive increases in their…IQ, for lack of a better term; they can make sense of problems ten times faster and do math, music and art on the old level of geniuses and in a few cases even savants. I even have a report here which shows that Master Sergeant Walter Harriman has developed a limited precognitive ability…"

"Walter?" said Hammond in amazement, whose eyes turned pensive; "I always wondered how he knew recently when I suddenly developed a need for coffee…for a long time I thought he could read my mind…"

"No, Sir," said Janet, her mouth twitching. "I tested him with various methods…flashcards and other cognitive tools, I had one of my staff throw a ball at the back of his head in an attempt to surprise him, he dodged it effortlessly, even though he couldn't see it. In addition, four base personnel have developed what could be called a limited 'Telepathic' ability…"

"Mind reading?" said Jack wearily.

"Nothing so cliché, Colonel," said Harry with a crooked grin.

"Due to his expertise and own abilities, the Ambassador evaluated the four men," said Janet, nodding to Harry, "Ambassador…"

"The four SGC personnel have developed a strong gift what is known as 'Legillimency'. It is the ability, under the correct conditions, to glean surface thoughts and the memories associated with those surface thought from a targeted mind."

"What are those conditions?" asked Thompson pointedly.

"They have to have eye contact with their target, in addition to general physical proximity, various people are susceptible to it in different ways, it depends on your own emotional control. A Legillimencer uses the emotions we feel as a vehicle into our minds and can see the memories attached to those emotions. Therefore…"

"No emotions, no 'mind reading'," said Sam thoughtfully.

"Yes, one can be trained to resist this, but it takes considerable time and effort," explained Harry.

"Based on this research, we have come to a few conclusions about the causes of our own sudden evolutionary leap," continued Dr Frasier. "The first is, that there is definitely an intelligence behind it, someone or something made this happen."

That stunned everyone.

"What is the evidence you have?" asked Thompson.

"When we looked at the statistics of abilities in relation to what position they held at the SGC," said Dr Frasier, pressing the remote and another graph appeared. "The four men we just mentioned with 'Legillimens' ability, are SG9."

"The diplomatic team?" said Sam in astonishment.

"Exactly," said Janet, "their ability is ideal for their very profession. What better way to negotiate when you know what the other side is actually thinking? Then we have the Special Forces personnel and to a man and woman, each one has developed an extreme ability at hearing, I wouldn't be surprised if they could outclass a bat in that department, they could hear the footfall of an enemy at extreme range. The Scientists on the base have all got the highest Brain utilization test scores, some, like Sam, also have to wear sunglasses because their vision is shifting into various spectra…now wouldn't that be handy to have when working with various devices to see what actually going on within, and most of my entire medical staff has demonstrated Touch Healing to various degrees…I can go on an on."

"I can also report that the Asgard are very interested in what's happening," said Harry evenly. "They have offered the services of Heimdall, their best geneticist, to help in mapping what is happening and perhaps discover the method with which this was done. They believe such a thing would be a key element in their own search for a cure against their own genetic degradation."

"I would have to speak to the Council on that," said Thompson. "Since we will in essence be allowing the Asgard a peak into our own genome, it must only be fair that they give something in return for it."

"The Asgard are a fair race, they will offer something of equal value in return," said Harry confidently.

"Is that all Doctor?" asked Hammond.

"For the moment," nodded Janet, "our other research is still ongoing. I must also stress that with the Asgard's help, things will go much faster."

"I will convey that to the Council," nodded Thompson.

"Dismissed."

**SGC Gate Control Room, Earth**

"Good morning, General, Ambassador," said Walter, standing from his station to greet his two superiors.

"Good morning Sergeant," said Hammond. Harry only nodded. "When is SG-1 due back?"

"Hour and twenty two minutes from now, sir," said Walter, but blinked and got an unfocused look as he said it. "Correction sir, they will be returning in twenty seconds."

"What makes you say that?" said Hammond automatically, but corrected himself, "ah yes, of course. A prediction, Sergeant?"

"Yes, sir," and seated himself at the Stargate controls, and sure enough, seventeen seconds later the Stargate burst to life. The Firestorm Shield went up first. "Receiving SG1's IDC. It's a code red, Sir. Looks like they're under fire."

Hammond picked up the duty officer handset on the control board, "Defense unit and medical team to the Gate room."

"Lowering Shield," reported Walter and placed his hand on the ID touch sensor. The red shield vanished from the event horizon. SG-1 burst through a moment later…Jack was being supported by Teal'C, the former was limping heavily. While Sam appeared a moment later and the fourth, new member of SG1, Captain Hagman stumbled through next to her. This was followed by of all things a crude spear that hurled itself through the event horizon and landed with a wooden _'plonk_' on the concrete floor just before the Gate shut down.

General Hammond rather incredulously picked up the spear and examined it briefly before turning to his premiere team. Jack, who looked supremely disgruntled and angry, muttered an exasperated, "Next!" to his commanding officer, before disappearing with Teal'C help on the way to the Infirmary.

Harry looked in amusement to see that Captain Hagman had collapsed with his heavy pack on the Gate ramp, and pulled out what looked to be blow dart out of his arm.

"I've been shot," said Hagman in amazement, his speech becoming slurred, "some…sort of tranquilizer…" before promptly falling into unconsciousness. The Medic on scene promptly declared him to be fine, and that his pulse was still strong.

"I'd classify P2X-374 as unfriendly, sir," reported Sam with a wry grin, her sports sunglasses strapped securely around her head with a nylon headband. "Fairly primitive from the looks of it," indicating the spear and the blow dart.

"I presume Captain Hagman will need to be reassigned?" said Hammond with a weary shake of the head.

"I'd say so, sir," said Sam wryly.

"We'll debrief in one hour, dismissed."

Harry caught up with her as she was on her way out.

"Hey Major," said Harry his eyes twinkling, "what's that make now…eight?"

"Nine," she replied with a chuckle, "if you count the two hours Captain Mathison lasted."

"Are you guys ever going to find someone you can work with?" he asked in bemused exasperation.

"I don't know…" she said uncertainly. "When you've done so much together as a team, and gone through so much together…you can't just throw a stranger into that deep end and expect him to swim." She turned thoughtfully to him. "For that matter, why don't you officially join SG-1? You've gone on numerous missions with us over the past few years. We're all friends…"

"I can't afford to tie myself to just a single team," explained Harry. "SG2 all the way through 40 could need me. I go on a mission-by-mission basis through the Gate, depending on what I can contribute. Not to mention my diplomatic and teaching duties, and other obligations on Seaworld and the Asgard. I have too much on my plate…"

"All right, all right," she said wearily, "I get it."

"On the other hand there is someone who I believe you could get along with," said Harry enigmatically.

"Who?" she asked curiously.

"I'm not saying anything, you must find that out for yourself, all I will say is that he is already here and quite eager," said Harry and walked off down the corridor leaving a puzzled Sam in his wake.

**SGC Gym, Earth**

Harry was on his fourth set of reps on the bench press. It was set on just under one hundred kilograms, but he had surreptitiously weaved a matrix on the weights in the machine to actually double that…since the machine couldn't give the weight he normally practiced and stayed in shape with. He had developed a good sweat already with it. He lowered the weights and they settled into their normal position and he levered himself up breathing heavily. For the occasion he had donned the traditional gym gear of a tank top and shorts. His attention was drawn to the flat blue cushioned mat a few feet away where Jonas and Teal'C were sparring with boxing gloves. Obviously Jonas was nowhere near the big Jaffa's weight class, so the Kelownan had donned headgear and groin protector, whilst Teal'C obviously didn't need to bother.

"He trusts you," said Jonas, trying a few jabs which Teal'C easily deflected or blocked as they moved around each other. 'He' was Jack, and it seemed that Jonas had after three months on Base finally decided to make his move to grab the chronically empty spot on SG-1, and were trying to convince both Sam and Jack to let him join. Teal'C, was as Harry predicted, sympathetic to Jonas.

"I believe it is you, he must learn to trust," argued Teal'C, and breached the Kelownan's poor guard easily with a straight jab that left him on the floor…it didn't phase the smaller man at all and he popped up to a vertical base like a jack-in-the-box.

"How can he learn to trust me if he even won't speak to me? You know? He holds me responsible for what happened to Dr Jackson," said Jonas with heavy breathing, while he tried random hooks and jabs that again Teal'C blocked easily.

"I believe you are correct," said Teal'C sincerely and bluntly, after which landing a hook, which again knocked the Kelownan to the floor…and again, the man popped up like nothing had happened. Harry had to hand it to the man; he had tenacity.

"How can I even begin to make up for it, if he won't give me a chance?" Teal'C didn't answer but managed another hit, which landed the Kelownan on his butt a third time…and again, popped up. "Is this really a sport on this planet?" asked Jonas in bemusement. Harry snorted to himself and began a fifth set of reps.

"Are you injured Jonas Quinn?" said Teal'C in a challenging tone.

"It'll take more than that…" said Jonas confindently. "Tell you what…I knock you down…you gotta talk to Colonel O'Neill for me." Teal'C nodded his agreement. "Ok," and was promptly dropped by another jab before he could even think to launch a punch…which was followed by another Jack-in-the-Box. "I'm Ok…" and despite his words, Jonas looked a little wobbly, "I wasn't ready…I'm ready now."

Jonas again did his Marquee of Queensbury style (probably read it in a book somewhere) which had no hope to counter Teal'Cs guard.

"Stop, stop," said Harry, waving his hands and jumping up from the bench. "Jonas, that style of boxing hasn't been used in two centuries. Your punches take way too long. You have treat your arms like coiled springs." Harry came to stand at the mat and demonstrated by pulling the Kelownan's arms up so his gloves hovered near his cheeks. "Elbows tucked in to protect your ribs…and…" he pulled Jonas' fist forward in the proper jab motion, "…and pull back…you have to strike as quick as a snake with a jab…you leave yourself wide open keeping your arm extended too long."

"I see," said Jonas thoughtfully.

"And you," said Harry to Teal'C with mock-remonstration, "should've at least taught him the basics." Teal'C could find no reason to argue with that and merely bowed his head in acknowledgement. Harry got out of the way and they began again. It made a huge difference. Jonas now managed to block Teal'C's devastating hits on a 50/50 basis. Jonas even managed to land a nice one-two combination of a left jab followed by a right hook. It knocked Teal'C back a step and turned the big Jaffa's head sharply with the force of it.

"Much better," said Harry.

"Indeed," acknowledged Teal'C, rubbing his jaw. "For that I believe I will speak to O'Neill on your behalf Jonas Quinn."

"I thought I had to knock you down?" said Jonas, leaning with hands on his knees, his exhaustion clear.

"It's very unlikely using only Boxing techniques that you would be able to achieve that," said Teal'C. "I weigh considerably more than you, Jonas Quinn." The Jaffa bowed to Jonas and left for the Locker Room.

"So there are other techniques that would let me knock him down?" said Jonas with an eager smile. Harry laughed and shook his head.

"There are a great many, Jonas, most of which don't even require great strength, in fact, some of the best practitioners of what we call 'martial arts' on Earth are quite skinny, I've seen some Masters who could take someone like Teal'C and calmly knock him down and flip him over as casually as if they were taking a relaxing stroll. But of course, I'm talking about Masters with years if not decades of experience under their belt."

"Can you teach me some?"

"Of course, but the first thing you must take to heart, is that martial arts is about instinct not thought," explained Harry. "Thought takes too long, therefore the arts must be ingrained into your instincts and this is done through repetitive drills and practice…are you willing to do that? Let go of your conscious self?"

Jonas nodded firmly.

"Good," said Harry with a grin, "now the first thing you must learn and the foundation for everything…is how to move in battle…"

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"Unscheduled incoming traveler!"

Harry looked up from the Dailing Computer's tertiary workstation, where he was making improvements and refinements to the code in the largely patchwork program that governed the Earth Stargate. Mostly he was adding safety interlocks and protocols that were normally present in all Alteran DHDs and seeing if he could work out any bugs in the software that he could spot. The Tertiary workstation was made for this purpose, as it was partially isolated from the main computer and would allow simulations of any new software without impacting day-to-day operations of the Stargate.

"Receiving Bratac's IDC, sir," reported Walter.

"Lower shield, open the iris," ordered Hammond. When Bratac emerged from the event horizon it was with concern that Harry noticed the old Jaffa's grave face as he walked down the ramp and was met by the General. They walked off, but Harry reigned in his curiosity and got back to programming.

Bratac entered the Control Room soon after and approached him.

"**Tek ma te,** **Jomo** Bratac," said Harry with a bow of the head. "Everything all right?"

"No," said Bratac gravely, "Teal'C's wife Drey'auc is severely ill."

"Is there nothing that can be done?" asked Harry in concern.

"Her **Prim'tah **has matured fully, and she refuses to take another," explained Bratac, his lips pursing. Harry winced, if there was one unintended consequence of fomenting rebellion among the Jaffa; then it was the fact that the Goa'uld did not trust their young to Jaffa priests anymore…therefore if you were a Rebel Jaffa and your symbiote matured or was mortally injured in battle, the only way to save yourself was to steal one from another Jaffa still loyal to the Goa'uld…which meant the sacrifice of one life for another. Harry had never met Drey'auc, but if she was Teal'C's wife then it meant her personal honor was just as valuable to herself…and no Jaffa worth his salt would so selfishly deprive another Jaffa of life…even an enemy.

"A solution has to be found," said Harry strongly, "until you are free of the need of **Prim'tah** your rebellion will never solidify itself fully into being."

"To find such a thing has long been a dream of mine," said Bratac his eyes turning slightly wistful. "To finally cast off the shackles of oppression and slavery that hang on our very existence."

It was at this point that a harried looking Teal'C entered now dressed in the casual robes of a Jaffa. Harry stood from the workstation and placed a hand on the big Jaffa's shoulder. Teal'C's eyes widened as he felt the commune of spirit…but he settled down and merely gave a bow to the Alteran; his face growing solemn and even slightly anguished.

Harry nodded and turned to Walter, "Dial the Rebel Jaffa."

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He stared at a particularly stubborn line in the program code that just didn't want to resolve itself and work with other elements of the system. The problem was that trying to change the conflicting parts of the code would result in other conflicts and it would just spiral out from there, it was like unraveling huge length of twisted cabling; you think you have a kink worked out when you realize there is another kink further along that requires you to thread the whole thing through again.

"Arggh," said Harry, massaging his own scalp in irritation. It was getting to the point where his little side hobby of trying to improve the Dialing computer might as well become an official project and start from scratch.

"Unauthorized incoming wormhole!" announced Walter, after staring in amusement at Harry's antics. The shield and iris closed and sure enough ten seconds later the Gate sprang to life with a whoosh of blue waterlike plasma.

Sam and Hammond entered the Control Room a few moments later via the rear staircase.

"We're not receiving an IDC, sir," said Walter in confusion. "In fact, there's nothing." Harry frowned in confusion and saved his work and brought up the Gate diagnostic screen and stared at the scrolling data.

"What's up?" asked Jack, striding briskly into the room.

"Apparently…nothing," said Sam, staring over Harry's shoulder at the computer screen.

"Nothing?" said Jack in confusion.

"It appears that way," said Harry thoughtfully.

"That's a twist," said Jack lightly.

"The Gate is functioning within norms," reported Harry with a frown. "This is definitely an incoming wormhole."

"But nothing is incoming?" asked Hammond in confusion.

"As far as I can tell at the moment."

"The Goa'uld used that tactic before," said Jack in concern.

"Block our escape while they attack in ships," said Sam.

"_Prometheus_, _Tranquility_ and the Asgard network report our immediate region of space is clear, sir," reported Walter after getting off the phone with the SGC Situation Room.

"That doesn't make any sense," said Sam, "in order to keep a wormhole open, you have to send something through…a radio signal, anything. We're getting…nothing."

"No, these sensors are getting nothing," qualified Harry, gesturing to the computer in front of him. "As you said, the Gate would not remain open unless it detects something is coming through. And the difference in tech between the Gate and sensors is astronomical."

"So something _is_ coming through, just…we can't detect whatever it is," said Sam.

"Figure it out, Ambassador, use whomever or whatever you need," ordered Hammond. "I'll call the President."

"Yes, General," said Harry, as the man rushed up the stairs to his office towards the infamous Red Phone.

"So what do you think?" asked Sam.

"I think we first have to wait thirty eight minutes," said Harry, something was tickling his mind about the whole situation…it almost felt as if the door in his mind to the Alteran Legacy was left ajar…if he had to put it in words.

"To see if the wormhole shuts itself off naturally," said Sam, it was a peculiar quirk of wormhole physics that due to space-fold dynamics and its interaction with the Universe and subspace, that a wormhole couldn't be maintained for longer than thirty eight minutes…except in the presence of a black hole…where those cozy laws of physics were completely screwed up because of the intense gravitational forces that warped Time, Space and all Matter in its area of effect. "In the meantime I think I'm going to program an accelerated dial command that will establish a wormhole to the Alpha site…in case the Gate shuts down."

"You can do that, but I've a feeling it won't matter," said Harry gravely.

"What do you mean?"

"Call it a gut instinct."

Thirty-seven minutes later Hammond and Jack were back in the Control Room, waiting to see what would happen. They all watched the timer on the digital clock ticking away the seconds that represented the length of time the wormhole was engaged.

Thirty seven minutes fifty seconds…fifty one, fifty two…fifty nine…thirty eight minutes…

The wormhole was still on.

"It's still on," said Hammond unnecessarily.

"Thirty eight minutes and give or take a few seconds," reiterated Sam. They waited another ten seconds…the wormhole continued unabated.

"How many is a few?" asked Jack.

"Ok, now we have a problem," said Sam, "Ambassador?"

"Well, since we are not experiencing Time Dilation effects, I think it's safe to say that a Black Hole is not on the other side of this wormhole," said Harry, "which makes whatever is causing this definitely related to some form of Alteran technology." He stood up and walked towards the exit.

"Where are you going?" asked Jack.

"To have a chat with the Stargate," threw Harry back.

"Are you going to say 'Please'?" smirked Jack.

"Don't be an ass, Jack."

Harry left the room and entered the Gate room. He walked up the ramp and stood in front of the shimmering red energy and not three microns beyond that was the gunmetal gray trinium of the Iris, beyond which was the event horizon. He walked to the edge of the ramp and leaned over to place a hand on the Stargate itself and closed his eyes.

"What does he hope to accomplish by that?" asked Sam in bemusement.

Harry withdrew his hand a moment later as if he had stuck his finger into a power socket. His face was grave as he walked back down the ramp, shaking his hand to bleed off the power back into the ether.

"We have a serious problem," said Harry gravely as soon as he was back, "set your workstation to Gate Diagnostic Screen 4 and increase sensor sensitivity by two hundred percent." He instructed Sam, who had taken his place at the Dialing computer

"What?" said Sam, in confusion. Harry stared at her fixedly. "Ok, ok, don't bite my head off." She tapped a few keys and a high-rise graph appeared on the screen, which represented what energy the sensors registered coming through the wormhole. The graph changed scale a few moments later to indicate the increased sensitivity…and a few moments later there was a pattern that registered itself and disappeared. "Damn," said Sam with a frown, the pattern appeared again. "How did you know?"

"That doesn't matter," said Harry looking at the Stargate with worry.

"Ambassador, what is it?" asked General Hammond.

"We are technically under attack," explained Harry, "our Stargate is being targeted by an Alteran device that was meant to solve problems such as that which the SGC had when it was connected to that Black Hole a few years ago, or to easily remove a Stargate from newly desolate, uninhabitable worlds without having to send a ship into harms way. If connected to another Stargate, you can use one Gate to destroy another by keeping the wormhole open and then it begins pumping excess amounts of energy down the subspace path for the receiving Gate's capacitors to retain…and once that capacitance is exceeded the Stargate will demolish itself…with considerable force."

"How much force?" asked Jack.

"Sam?" asked Harry. She blinked and guessed what he wanted…and closer her eyes, her mouth mumbling.

"Three thousand one hundred and two, point four megaton explosion, based on the amount of Naquadah naturally present in a Stargate," she said eventually.

"That's enough to take out Colorado," said Hammond incredulously.

"The resulting environmental effects would wipe out all life on earth as well," explained Sam with a wince.

"How long?"

"Factoring in the Shield and Iris, which is only slowing down the energy transfer," said Harry thoughtfully, "three days. And it gets worse."

"How can it get worse?" said Jack in astonishment.

"Well, short of jumping in a Time Machine, which we don't have," said Harry sarcastically, "I know of no way to stop it."

**SGC, Briefing Room 1, Earth**

The room was packed with the assembled scientific brains of the SGC and Area 51, every scientist from straight forward physicist to structural engineer to programmer was milling about talking over the problem with each other and scratching on white boards and in general going crazy trying to come up with a solution.

Harry was standing with Sam near the window overlooking the Stargate speaking to two other female scientists also sporting military careers.

"Energy buildup in the Gate has reached eighteen percent," said the red-head called Higgins on her uniform BDUs.

"There has to be a way to drain the capacitors,…" argued Sam.

"Even if we could," said the brunette, McCullum, "it would just be buying us time, it wouldn't solve the root cause."

"Still sexy as ever, I see…nice shades," came a smug voice from behind the group. Harry gave a sigh and his shoulders drooped in weariness. Rodney Mckay strolled merrily into the room. Mckay was a man of average height, slightly overweight and had spiky thin hair that look to be in the first stages of receding. He sported a perpetual wry look on his face and walked with a confident air that broadcasted a figurative neon sign above his head 'Genius, and loving it.'

"I sincerely hope you directed that statement to my three colleagues here Mckay," said Harry wryly, "and not at me."

"What!…of course…I mean…" blubbered the arrogant Canadian scientist, and Head of R at Area 51.

"What are you doing here?" said Sam with a frown.

"Well," said Mckay, latching on to the question, "there no point in building interstellar vessels for Earth when there isn't going to be an Earth, is there? The Pentagon thought you, uh, might need some extra help."

"Not from you," argued Sam unpleasantly.

"Oh, Ok," said Mckay airily, "well, then I'll get a coffee and a doughnut and wait for the big bang." He gestured smugly with his hand towards the table where condiments had been brought for all the scientists so they didn't have to waste time walking back and forth between the Mess hall; a doughnut from the box on the table soared through the air and landed in his hand. He walked off clearly enjoying its taste.

"Just what we needed," grumbled Sam angrily.

Twenty-four hours had passed and Harry and Sam had retreated to their shared Lab. His reason was all the amount of ridiculously complicated theories and solutions that were being flung about by the scientists (and which had no hope of implementation in the time left) that was starting to really get on his nerves. Sam, well, she had a different reason.

"Hey, how come you two are not downstairs with the rest of the eggheads?" said Jack, sauntering into the room. He got pointed looks from both 'physicists'. "Not that you're…um…eggheads…"

Sam looked at him with her eyebrows raised.

"Well…you both are…actually…but in a good way."

"Thanks Jack," said Harry sarcastically, scratching out an energy equation on the white board and starting over.

"I couldn't think down there," said Sam, "they kept looking at me and Harry for the answer."

"Well, you both do have a penchant for pulling brilliant ideas out of your butts," said Jack astutely.

Sam merely gave him an incredulous look, while Harry grumbled under his breath and wiped clean the whiteboard and started again.

"Head…" said Jack wearily, "…out of your heads…when we need them."

"Not this time," said Sam heavily.

"Well, you still got two days to work on it."

"Sir, I don't think we could solve this if we had a couple of years," she said tightly.

"Carter, am I sensing fear in your voice?"

"Yes, actually," she said breathing faster, "a lot of fear."

"Well, stop it! You're making me nervous."

"What about you, Sir?" said Sam desperately. "Any ideas?" Harry chuckled inwardly, while Jack stared at her in consternation. "I mean, sometimes you have a way of seeing things at their simplest."

"Thank you," said Jack, with a pleased expression on his face, which faded into a deeply thoughtful look… "I'm gonna go eat some cake."

"I think I'll join you," said Sam with a wry grin and followed her commanding officer out. Harry glanced back at the board and chucked pen to the floor.

"Screw it," he muttered to himself and pulled out his subspace com unit. And dialed it into a special frequency and encryption. He waited a few moments until a voice came through.

"Greetings, Tyr," said Thor's voice.

"Thor, we have a situation here on Earth, I need the best Asgard physicist that's currently present in the Solar system at the SGC on the double," said Harry gravely.

"What is the situation?" said Thor immediately.

"Well, Earth's Stargate is being systematically and purposely overloaded with power from an incoming wormhole, as we speak."

"An Alteran Stargate Demolition Device," said Thor immediately. "That is grave news. Skadi is currently on Mars, I will send her to you shortly."

"Thanks buddy," said Harry gloomily and shut down the com device.

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Harry walked next to the diminutive gray figure of Skadi and they entered the Gate Room.

"How long has the Stargate been active?" asked Skadi in her characteristic cold female tone of voice.

"Almost a day," said Harry. Skadi raised a Jewel Device in her hand that glowed for a moment and flashed towards the Stargate.

"Interesting," she murmured.

But before Harry could ask her to elaborate, a deafening bang was heard against the Stargate's Iris and the Shield flashed. Alarms were tripped automatically. Another bang thundered in the room.

"What's going on?" asked Jack, hurrying into the room with Sam hot on his heels, whilst defense teams rushed in as well.

"I have no idea," shrugged Harry.

There was a flash of blue light that somehow managed to project itself through the Iris and the Firestorm shield, which coalesced into a tall shaky image. Standing there, projected larger than life, was a dark robed figure, with red trimmings on the edges and inky blackness staring out of the hood.

"I am Anubis!" said the figure in a cracking, ugly voice that grated on Harry's nerves.

"It seems he's been helping himself to Tollan holographic technology," commented Harry angrily.

"Humans of the Tau'ri," said Anubis, his arms gesturing grandly, "your end of days finally approaches. There _will be no mercy._"

"Oh, come on…" moaned Jack, "who talks like that?"

"You will bow to my awesome power. There is nothing that can stop the destruction I bring upon you. Prepare…to meet your doom."

The hologram vanished.

"Oh, please," said Jack, rolling his eyes in exasperation.

Sam, Mckay, Harry and Skadi walked up the stairs from the Control Room into the Briefing Room. Since the steps were too steep for the Asgard physicist, Harry gently levitated her up in front of him as they walked.

"Anubis has a real flair for the dramatic, doesn't he? Very theatrical," mused Mckay.

"Pretty much all the Goa'uld are like that," said Sam.

"But why wait? Why does this guy show up after a day and a half after all this starts to do his whole '_Prepare to meet your doom'_ thing?" said Mckay snarkily waving his hands mockingly.

"I don't know, maybe he wanted to make sure it was going to work," said Sam.

They emerged into the Briefing Room where numerous scientists were still arguing back and forth, but the room was considerably emptier than it was last, with numerous of them having retreated back to their offices to muse. Harry let Skadi hover to the floor and she gave a nod of thanks for the lift.

"Yeah," laughed Mckay, "that would be embarrassing wouldn't it?" he dropped his voice to a low sinister mocking rendition of Anubis "_'Nothing can stop the destruction I bring upon you!_' Then the Gate shuts down. '_Oops, sorry. Nevermind_…'"

"Yeah, well…that didn't happen, and we only have fifty four hours left," said Sam staring at her watch.

"Skadi, you were going to say something before Anubis graced us with cliché ethereal appearance," said Harry, raising his eyebrows at Mckay. Skadi turned her large bulbous eyes to look upon the Canadian scientist in such a manner that it was enough to make Mckay frown in awkwardness at her unyielding stare. She even muttered something rather unflattering in Asgardian that Harry struggled not to burst out laughing.

"I was going to say," said Skadi coldly, "that there is little that even the Asgard could do against what the Alteran Stargate Demolition device is doing. It is warping subspace itself around the Stargate to keep the 'wormhole' open and any attempt to forcibly shut down the device from this end would result in premature detonation of the Stargate and even a partial reaction in subspace which would magnify the destruction to encompass half of this solar system."

"Urg," said Harry rubbing his head with weariness, "sometimes I wish the Alterans weren't so good at what they did."

"Wait a second," said Mckay, snapping his fingers repeatedly, "we know certain frequencies in the radio and electromagnetic spectrum can travel in both directions through a wormhole. Radio signals, for example."

"Obviously," said Skadi, her black eyes glistening.

"So what?" asked Sam in confusion, "we call Anubis and ask him to stop?" she said sarcastically.

"Yeah," said Mckay equally sarcastic, "'_Hey, Anubis, this is your agent, you're playing it way over the top, can you get serious, please?_'"

"You were saying?" said Sam in exasperation.

"So, since we can't send anything that would affect subspace back through, like a beam weapon," he nodded at Skadi, "we send a massive electromagnetic pulse back through the wormhole, and knock out the Alteran Demolition Device."

"Will that work?" asked Hammond suddenly, joining the conversation.

"No," said Skadi and Sam simultaneously, and they looked at each other; Sam with surprise and Skadi with astonished black eyes.

"No, sir," said Sam, hastening to explain. "I had already thought of it, and the reason I didn't mention it, is because it's too problematic."

"More so than the Gate exploding?" asked Mckay pointedly.

"The Shield and Iris would have to be retracted," argued Sam.

"Well, the Gate room's shielded now as well, isn't it?"

"Major, are you saying this absolutely won't work?" said Hammond.

"What I'm saying, Sir, is that we have no idea how much EM would be required to knock this thing out."

"That's also assuming that the Device itself is even vulnerable to such interference," said Harry with a raised eyebrow, "it could be hardened against EMP."

"So, let's just all go home then," said Mckay dryly.

"How long will it take to set up?" said Hammond.

"Four hours, tops," replied Mckay.

"That's how long you three," he pointed to Harry, Sam and Skadi, "have to come up with a better idea."

Skadi emitted a string of harmonic Asgard language and shook her head.

"Tell me about it," said Harry matter-of-factly.

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Harry watched from the Control Room as Mckay and Sergeant Siler used the overhead hoist to move a rather large cylindrical EMP generator into place. Mckay was measuring distances with a laser and bustling about.

"_I find it perplexing that your leader will go ahead with a plan, even though it has little chance of succeeding,_" said Skadi in Asgardian.

"_It's a little quality in Terrans that we refer to as 'hoping for the best',_" explained Harry in Alteran.

"Ambasssador…whoa…" he turned to regard Jonas Quinn, who was standing a few feet away looking rather amazed at the sight of Skadi.

"Oh, I forgot, you haven't met an Asgard before," said Harry with a grin. "Jonas, this is Skadi. Skadi, this is Jonas Quinn, the man who brought us Naquadria."

"A pleasure," droned Skadi tilting her head and turning back to watch the Gate room.

"Nice to meet you too," said Jonas uncertainly, and he came to stand next to Harry while still casting furtive glances at the Asgard. "So I hear you are going to try an EMP?"

"No, Dr Mckay is going to try an EMP," said Harry in irritation, "at the moment its only viable idea anyone has. And how do you know what an EMP is?"

"I had Dr Lee explain it to me," said Jonas with a shrug.

"Oh."

Sam and Mckay finished their positioning of the EMP generator, and hurriedly ran out of the Gate room and into the Control Room.

"Are we ready?" asked General Hammond, coming down from the stairs.

"Almost sir," said Sam taking her seat at the Dialing computer.

"Close the blast doors and raise perimeter shields."

The heavy steel and lead reinforced Blast doors slid down from above and obscured the view of the Gate Room, they next heard a shimmering electrical sound as the shields around the perimeter of the room came to life. Everyone turned to face the plasma screens, which showed camera feeds of the Gate room.

"Retract Iris and Shield," ordered Hammond. Sam placed her hand on the print sensor, which flashed green, and on the monitors they saw the red shimmer of the shield dissipate before the Iris slid smoothly open.

"Energy transfer to the Gate is increasing…" said Sam in warning. "Seven times greater…eight…nine…ten…"

"Go, go," said Mckay, giving a shooing motion to Sergeant Siler, who immediately pressed a few remote commands at his own workstation. The generator's mechanisms began to visibly turn and a high-pitched warbling sound began to resonate everywhere. Harry noticed the Gate's event horizon began to wobble as if some was managing to shake the 'water' of the Gate. It was all they saw before the cameras shorted out due to the EM radiation.

"Energy transfer is still increasing, look if this was gonna work…"

There was the sudden sound of explosions from within the Gate room.

"Energy feedback!" shouted Siler, "shields are weakening!"

"Raise shield and Iris!" snapped Hammond. Sam complied and after two moments the sound of the Iris was heard and the explosions ceased. "Open blast doors."

Harry stared in astonishment at the EMP generator…or rather, what was left of it, barely a few tattered remains hung suspended from the crane with which it was brought down. The shields had done a good job protecting everyone from those energy discharges because there were stripes of carbonized concrete all along the floor of the Gate room.

"That can't be good, can it?" asked Jonas idly.

The command staff of the SGC, SG1, Harry, Skadi, a much-subdued Mckay, and numerous other scientists had gathered in the Briefing Room to regroup and try and Brainstorm ideas off each other.

"How much time do we have left?" asked Hammond.

"The Major was right," said Mckay absently staring out the window looking down into the Gate Room, "we've cut our available time in half with the attempt to use the EMP. Twenty five hours."

"What if we encase the Gate in trinium alloy…" suggested one scientist.

"There no time to implement that…and that's tantamount to giving up…" argued another.

And on and on it went again…Harry was surprised to see that Mckay was staying well out of the Brainstorm session and remaining near the window. Sam had noticed this and broke away from the discussion and surprisingly the two started to talk. Curious about what could such two professional rivals be talking about he headed over to them as well.

"What are you thinking?" asked Sam.

"Besides the fact that despite our sudden evolution that those guys (he gestured to the lab coated egghead scientists) are still morons," snorted Mckay contemptuously, "what do you think the guy with the wacky naquadah is doing down there?" he pointed down into the Gate Room.

Harry saw the Jonas was standing on the ramp leading up to the Stargate and pensively staring around the room and looking up occasionally to the ceiling, and then at the doors.

"I'll go find out," said Sam, and walked out the room.

"You doing ok, Mckay?" said Harry.

"Yeah, at least until the Gate explodes," said the man his usual wry wit. "You know I always wanted to be pianist."

"I can't really picture you in front of a piano," said Harry in amusement.

"Yeah, well, I had a not-so comfortable childhood. My parents hated each other, blamed me for everything. Music was…my salvation. It had this…perfect order for me."

"Well, I can't relate as to parents, being an orphan, but I was raised early on in a similar environment," said Harry, suddenly wondering why the hell he was suddenly managing to 'relate' well to Mckay.

"Then you know what it's like, anyway, when I was twelve, my teacher told me to quit playing, 'A fine clinical player' she said, 'but no sense of the art.' I then turned to science because I thought it would be different than music, but it isn't, it's just the same. It's just as much of an art as anything else."

"It's not your fault the EM didn't work, Mckay," said Harry, trying to zero in on the problem.

"You're an artist, Ambassador, and so is the Major," he said, ignoring Harry's attempted placation. "I'm just critical of you both, because I'm jealous."

"Thanks, Mckay," said Harry uncomfortably, "but as you can see, I'm stumped along with rest of the folks in this room."

"See I've realized that it's gonna be one of either your or Major Carter's typically insane ideas that you come up with at the last moment that's going to save us…so this little heart to heart is merely self-preservation."

Harry was about to reply when Sam burst into the room her face alight with a glow of triumph and excitement.

"I've got it!"

"See what I mean?" said Mckay gesturing to her.

And indeed it was a solution. A brilliant, astonishingly simple one, like all brilliant solutions are. Everyone in attendance had moved to once side of the room and Sam stood next to the wallscreen where her one hand had a remote and another a laser pointer.

"The solution is this…we move the Stargate," she said simply.

"Umm…how would moving it help us?" asked a scientist.

"I mean we move the Stargate off Earth."

"Bloody brilliant," said Harry clapping his hands together. "We move the Stargate far enough away from Earth so its Point of Origin isn't valid anymore."

"Exactly," said Sam, "once we've gotten enough distance the wormhole should disengage itself. We leave it in properly calculated orbit and allow the Gate to cool down."

"How far away?"

"For safety's sake, I think it should be left well out of our Solar System beyond Pluto, maybe even in the Oort Cloud."

"Will the Gate even lose its charge?"

"Of course," said Mckay with a frown, "if it didn't a Stargate couldn't be used more than a few dozen times."

"That's if the energy that's being used to sustain the wormhole is of a nature we know of," countered another scientist, "what if it's something exotic we haven't seen before."

"There is no possibility of that," countered Skadi, "my scan shows only normal power being retained by the Stargate."

"Ok, what about the practicality of it?" asked Hammond. "I assume you want _Prometheus_ to beam up the Gate." The ship had just finished a refit that had added Asgard remote beaming tech to it.

"That would be a bad idea…beaming the Gate up, I mean," said Harry. "There's no way a transporter energy buffer can handle the amount of energy that's currently in the Gate. The _Prometheus_ would have to physically come in for a hover over Cheyenne Mountain and pick it up."

"And that adds a new time limit and constraint to this plan," said Sam. "There is only four hours of night left outside the Mountain. The _Prometheus_ would need to come in under full EMCON and Stealth to remain undetected, as there is no time to arrange for a free airspace window to allow her to remain unobserved. It'll take us two hours to get the Stargate decoupled and hoisted up the shaft…that leaves us with twenty three hours to get the Stargate away from our Solar System."

"You have me convinced," said Hammond abruptly, "all right people, move it! Get it done!" His command voice snapped over everyone like a whip and all the scientists scattered. "Well done, Major," said Hammond, approaching Sam as everyone hurried to their stations and to phones to make the plan happen.

"It wasn't all my idea, sir," said Sam modestly.

"Right," nodded Hammond.

"So what will we do about a Stargate if this works?" asked Mckay.

"Well, we can't use the Beta Gate," said Sam. "Anubis could just start this all over again."

"Which means we would need to first find out where the Alteran device is and destroy it before we could even think of resuming Stargate operations," said Harry thoughtfully.

"Well, that's good for me," said Mckay rubbing his hands together, "that means our focus will shift to starships."

Two hours later, if anyone was even awake they would've heard a strange unearthly noise descend over Cheyenne Mountain and a void of deepest black that hovered over the night sky. This noise and void would remain until it abruptly changed pitch and streaked into night, blotting out the stars as it went.

A few 'night owls' would manage to capture it on camera, but the most they could see was only a darker patch of night on the camera. And the noise would be laughed off as not having enough sleep or perhaps drinking too much.

**Oort Cloud, Sol**

_Prometheus_ had made good time in getting there, at full sublight they had managed to burn their way outside the outer edges of the Solar System in less than five hours. The highly charged Stargate had ridden out the journey in one of the Cargo bays and not even a few moments after clearing Pluto's orbit…the wormhole vanished as if it had never been.

It was decided then to revise the plan of leaving the Stargate in a stable orbit. Skadi had arranged for her own Asgard Science vessel to shadow Prometheus and provide transportation for the equipment and materials to shift the Stargate's Iris slightly backwards…this in effect, buried the Stargate and wouldn't allow wormholes to connect.

And so after allowing for a further ten hours of cool down, _Prometheus_ returned and beamed down the Stargate back within one of the SGCs larger cargo rooms.

**Rebel Jaffa Cargo Ship, en route to Sol…**

Ry'ac, son of Teal'C, stood behind the pilot's station, staring out the forward windows at the swirling of Hyperspace as the small ship tore its way through subspace and towards the now infamous Tau'ri home system.

He was seventeen standard years old now, and nearly stood equal his father in height, but had far to go before he could acquire his formidable father's physique. He stood with an air of satisfaction and accomplishment, yet not arrogance. For he had just been pivotal in helping his father and Master Bratac escape from Anubis's Jaffa and to destroy the Weapon of the Ancients that was being used against the Tau'ri.

Ry'ac had stolen a Death Glider from right under the noses of the enemy and after a precision strafing run, had freed his father and Bratac from their captors. He had promptly turned and did another strafing run, this time on the Weapon itself. It was rather satisfying seeing the Weapon explode with a brilliant fireball and the massive shockwave that ripped through the earth. He had little time to celebrate, as two enemy Gliders had intercepted him. And not only did he score his first two kills in a cockpit, but he also helped his two fellow Jaffa escape.

Ry'ac had stopped looking at his father since their journey to the Tau'ri homeworld began, because Teal'C's face was shining with pride in his son's abilities, and it made Ry'ac have to fight off a blush.

"We are approaching the edge of the Tau'ri system," reported Bratac.

"Drop out of Hyperspace before we cross the outermost planet's range," said Teal'C. Bratac nodded. And the Cargo ship smoothly transited into real space. Ry'ac could see the distant Tau'ri star no bigger than a thumbnail at this range.

"Why are we dropping out so soon, father?" asked Ry'ac.

"Because it would be decidedly unwise to jump directly over the Tau'ri homeworld," said Teal'C stoically. "Remember that, if you should ever need to seek shelter here. All allies of the Tau'ri know never to just appear within the inner System…if you do so, they will take immediate action to destroy you."

Before he could ask his father to elaborate further he saw beyond the cockpit window four small hyperspace windows forming and to his amazement four vessels remarkably like a Glider shot out and began to fly aggressively towards them.

"_This is Mongoose Flight_," came an unknown male voice over the com system, _"unidentified Cargo Ship, come to a full stop and declare yourself or you will be presumed hostile and we will fire on you._"

Ry'ac saw his father immediately transmit a sequence of numbers to what he assumed were Tau'ri attack fighters.

"_Confirmed your IDCs_," said the lead fighter over the radio, "_your presence has been notified and confirmed by Tranquility, you are clear for a run to Terra, have a good day and welcome back, Teal'C."_

The four fighters swooped with great maneuverability past the Cargo ship and promptly vanished into Hyperspace.

"Tau'ri fighters can go into Hyperspace?" asked Ry'ac, amazed.

"Indeed," said his father. The next amazing thing to happen was just as they passed the fourth planet. Straight out of legends, a massive Asgard cruiser passed them on its way somewhere. "Yes, that was an Asgard mothership."

And soon they orbited the gleaming blue and white jewel in the black void…the Tau'ri homeworld.

"This is Teal'C," said his father into the subspace radio, "calling Stargate Command." A few moments passed.

"_Teal'C, this is Sgt Davis, SGC Control, welcome back to Sol."_

"Thank you sergeant, can you please gather General Hammond, and SG1."

"_Stand by…go ahead, they're all here_."

"General Hammond…"

"…_Teal'C!"_ came voices that were somewhat familiar to Ry'ac, but he couldn't place them. He had last been on the Tau'ri homeworld five years ago and he couldn't remember much, seeing that Apophis had him drugged on **Rash'na** to be loyal only to him at the time.

"O'Neill!" said his father in a pleased voice, "it is good to hear you are well. The weapon being used by Anubis has been destroyed but we feared it was too late for your world."

"_You know us_," said the voice with a laugh, "_we find the simplest, brilliant and utterly dumb plan and it always works_."

"Indeed," laughed Teal'C. "We require permission and coordinates to land."

"_Permission granted_."

"Good job!" said O'Neill.

"It is in fact," and with this his father grasped him in a proud hug, "Ry'ac who deserves the honor."

_Curse this blushing_, thought Ry'ac.

**SGC Gate Room, Earth**

Harry watched with General Hammond as Jack, Sam and Teal'C were standing at the base of the ramp and going over their gear, instead of the PR7, they now carried the PR8 AW with all its attached systems and energy weapon resistant armor. Teal'C still carried his Staff weapon, but it had been modified to work with the armor and integrated combat information system.

"Good luck, Colonel," said Hammond.

"Thank you, sir," said Jack.

The far door to the Gate room opened and the newest member of SG1 entered. As a reward for his idea that successfully led to the resolution of the latest crisis (and some pressure from the STO; who had wanted to put an International member on SG1) now Jonas Quinn stood clad in full SGC BDUs, tac vest, energy resistant armor and wearing a Colt sidearm and Zatnickatel in holsters on either leg. He jogged into the room and was fussing with a standard infantryman helmet on his head.

"How do I look?" he asked with a grin,

"Uh…you might want to loose the helmet, until you're qualified on the PR8 and its systems, it'll only get in the way," said Sam, adjusting the HUD eyepiece on her ergonomic helmet.

O'Neill who was standing behind Jonas, shook his head at her in exasperation and signaled 'No' with his hands. Clearly he wanted to make Jonas suffer with the bulky helmet. He dropped the innuendo when Jonas turned around and removed the helmet to replace it with a cap.

"Good guess on the green," said Jack, referring to the color of BDUs Jonas was wearing.

"Thanks."

"SG1, you have a go," said Hammond.

"Thank you, sir,"

"Safe journey," said Harry with a bow of his head.

Jack grinned and nodded. SG1 lined up on the ramp and faced the re-installed Stargate as its event horizon rippled with a faint wind…almost as if it was eager to do what it was meant to do, once again.

In perfect step SG1, once again four, walked forward and was flung through the Galaxy on the next stage of their journey.

_A/N: Nice long chapter there. Next we see bigger consequences of the Great Leap. Prometheus. SpecOps get their crack at the Goa'uld. And more. Oh, that was one thing I always wondered. How come Anubis didn't manage to salvage any tech from the conquered Tollan homeworld? I address that in this chap. _


	29. Chapter 29

_**Chapter Twenty-Nine – Aiyana**_

'…_in a surprise move today at the United Nations, a grouping of eighty nations; representing some of the most powerful countries in their respective regions, announced the formation of a new International initiative; the Delphi Academy Program._

'_Its purpose; to build Departments within already existing Academic Institutions around the world that will cater to the needs of children who are developing enhanced abilities thanks to the Great Leap. In addition, Delphi Academies will also be built in their own right, to help adults in developing and gaining proper control over their metaphysical abilities.'_

'_An invitation has been extended by, what is now being called the 'G-80' for other nations around the world to join the Delphic education initiative.'_

'_It is too soon to tell what the overall response will be from the UN, but analysts predict that it will be favorable, as many countries are ill-equipped to research and educate their own people on their new metaphysical abilities."_

'_In other news, there was astonishment as the Pope, in his Sunday mass, supported the scientific view that there had to be life in the Galaxy and beyond, citing that 'God loves diversity, and His creation is simply too large for it to be otherwise'_

Harry had to hand it to whoever thought it up, it was a brilliant idea; not just the Delphi Academy…but whom they were going to use for instructors. The only people on Terra who had had metaphysical abilities before the 'Great Leap', and people who were well versed in both the hidden world of Alteran descendants and the 'normal' world (which wasn't normal anymore)…in short, as a British wizard would say…Muggleborns and Muggle-raised.

He had received an email from the President a few days ago, in which it detailed the effect of the 'Great Leap' on wizardom…or at least, this was what the American Bureau of Magic had told President Clinton. Since the evolution, the amount of 'magical' activity had gone through the roof and it was becoming increasingly difficult to monitor the country. The Obliviators had been ordered to stand down except for calls related to 'magical' creature sightings. The reasons for this went beyond being swamped in reports of magical activity everywhere.

The Bureau had been called in to capture and contain criminals who had used their metaphysical abilities to escape (thankfully there had been no reports of serial murderers or psychopaths who had developed powers…it seemed that the nanites had done their job) and American Unspeakables had started to do testing of their own and every single test showed the criminals to be a 'wizard', even though they had never before heard of a wand in their life. They did the tests again on other randomly gathered people, and found to a man and woman…that they were 'magical', even the President himself. It seemed that the word 'Muggle' was going to die quickly.

The President had also included the finer print on the Delphi Academy…such as the use of 'Muggleborn' as instructors. Harry noticed with amusement the notation that the idea had originated in England…and it wasn't far-fetched to assume it had come from a certain bushy-haired witch. In fact, as Harry read on into the Delphic Initiative's memoranda that a few of the clauses had her 'ethical fingerprint' all over them.

Obviously the British Government had gotten a bit of help from their 'magical' counterpart.

He shut down his computer as Sam came into their shared lab carrying what a long roll of blueprints in one hand and a TabletPC in another.

"Hey Harry," she said.

"Sam." He noticed her expression. "What have you discovered now?" She smiled knowingly at him.

"This just came from the Patents office, our watch officer there flagged it for my attention," she explained gesturing to the Tablet and the plans. "If this pans out and we can build it, hopefully with enough time to integrate it into _Daedalus_, _Odyssey_, _Apollo_ and the new ship class, it'll solve a lot of problems and perhaps even further speed up production." Harry glanced at the TabletPC and unrolled the plans. After perhaps ten minutes of reading, assessing, and nail-biting on Sam's part…no doubt waiting on his verdict…he looked up.

"Amazing," said Harry looking deeply thoughtful. "You think Area 51 can manage it?"

"With the equipment they have there…it's possible," said Sam earnestly. "The inventor has no idea of what scientific strides we've made in secret, therefore with a bit of refinement I think it's worth the try. Of course, it will all depend on how many qubits we can create and keep isolated in its own system…but the power of it can theoretically make the crystal Information tech on Goa'uld ships look like an old XT processor in comparison if we can keep more than ten quanta states stable."

"Indeed," said Harry. "Well, our only major obstacle is, as you mentioned, decoherence of the quantum structure, but it should be doable…you've got my vote."

"Excellent," said Sam, "now, we'll have to build a prototype here and at least prove that it's possible."

"Let's get started then."

**Starship **_**Achilles**_**, Hyperspace…**

He sat pensively on the glowing blue and marble white Control Chair, around him twirled the visual spectacle that was the tunnel of Hyperspace. His mind was awash in the Cyberspace of his ship's computer, sensors, and everything else that told him the status of his vessel.

There was a beep of warning and a glowing holographic screen appeared a few feet in front of him.

"_Hyperspace transition in ten seconds_," said Colonel Ronson.

"Understood," nodded Harry, and the screen vanished. In the meantime he was hoping and praying that everything went well and that nobody screwed up. He chuckled when he remembered the famous astronaut Alan Sheppard's prayer before he was blasted into orbit in the '60s era Space Program.

He willed every weapon system he had on the ship to full power.

_Achilles_ swooped out of its Hyperspace window. Only, it was not alone. _Prometheus_ and the twelve F302 fighters from Mongoose Squadron burst out of their own respective windows.

Confronting them was a large world with numerous continents and few oceans; it was quite pristine, except for the four Ha'tak that orbited it. They wasted no time, and barely a moment out of Hyperspace, the _Prometheus_ fired her first ever shots in anger. Sixteen AHM missiles shot forth from her launchers and their small sublight engines glowed an angry red as they raced forth to their targets…they divided into four groups, four missiles per Ha'tak, and every fourth missile was the AHM-1C that used Naquadria.

Multiple flashes of pure white explosive energy detonated against the Ha'tak's shields.

"_Achilles_ to _Prometheus_, their shields are down to thirty percent and I'm detecting overloads and internal damage, press the attack," suggested Harry.

The Terran ships did just that. And this time the Mongooses launched twelve missiles, one from each fighter. Twelve globes of red light streaked through space. The Ha'tak's finally managed to organize themselves to return fire, but the bright orange ship to ship plasma cannon fire came too late. There were more flashes of light and visible shockwaves and when the explosions cleared. Only a single Ha'tak was intact, barely keeping its hull integrity, whilst its fellows were no more than scattered empty husks of hulls drifting apart.

Things got interesting though as the last remaining Ha'tak managed to empty its Glider bays and twenty Death Gliders swarmed towards them.

Harry focused on the Ha'tak and from the _Achilles_ emitter ring a beam of pure white energy lanced out and hit the beleaguered Goa'uld vessel. It promptly started to glow bright white and suddenly it was merely a cloud of disassembled particulate matter that was drifting apart on the solar winds…it was a weapon that could not penetrate Shields, but was very effective in finishing off ships. More such disintegrator beams lashed out at the drifting debris from the three destroyed Ha'taks.

Meanwhile, Mongoose flight was living up to what their mascot was famous for…killing snakes. The squadron of twelve divided into six teams of two…the leader of each team picking a Glider as a target, while the latter team member covered his back. Already the independently articulated cannon of the F302 made a huge difference…a Glider could not expect itself safe by staying out of the forward kill zone of the F302, Harry watched as a Glider tried to do that only to be blown to smithereens when the plasma cannon of the F302 rotated to port and nailed it with a single shot. Another Jaffa pilot was surprised when he thought he had cornered a F302 alone and locked him in his sights, when the cannon on the fighter in front of him rotated a full 180 degrees and shot backwards, blowing off the wing of the Glider and sending it spiraling off into space.

Then there were the standard Sidewinder missiles (retrofitted for use in space superiority fighting) that the F302 still carried for dogfights.

And if that wasn't enough, the _Prometheus_ closed into range and unleashed its anti-fighter rail guns.

The last part of the battle lasted just under eight minutes; the final Glider falling under precision rail gunfire from _Prometheus_.

"_This is Prometheus Actual to SGC, we have space superiority,_" came the transmission, that was beamed down to the planet surface, where the Stargate had come alive with an incoming wormhole from Earth, just as the attack began.

"Understood, _Prometheus_, well done, ground phase commencing," said the familiar voice of General Hammond.

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**SGC, Earth**

The Gate Room in the SGC had undergone a slight overhaul before Earth's retaliation against Anubis had launched. The large hall-like room had been lengthened by a few meters, and the Stargate itself had been mounted onto a rail system so that it could be moved forward and backward at the touch of a button. And on the rear wall a perfectly rounded slab of concrete (which had the same diameter as the mouth of the Stargate) had been built. What did this accomplish? A great deal.

Firstly, the Stargate could now be 'buried' and 'unburied' on a moment's notice. The Stargate would move backwards to the extent that it touched the rear wall, and the circular concrete slab would fill the interior diameter perfectly. It wouldn't stop an already connected wormhole, but it would give SG Commanders the option to take the Stargate 'off-the-map' and cut off a possible attack point for any enemy.

Secondly, now that more room was available, the Stargate could now be used as a delivery system for the larger ordinances that was available to Terran Militaries, especially, the Navy Tomahawk Cruise Missile. 'Missile' was actually a misnomer for the Tomahawk, since it's in effect a twenty foot long self-guided plane, that is initially launched with a five hundred pound solid rocket booster, at which point a turbofan engine takes over after the rocket is done.

The launching system for it had been adapted from the truck-mounted launcher that the Army used, to be fitted onto the main crane that lowered itself from the retractable roof of the Gate Room. This ominous weapon system with four launcher tubes was now pointing directly at the event horizon.

Red curtains of energy shielding descended on all the walls of the Gate Room.

"Prometheus Actual, we have joy on Snakebusters one and two, paint the targets," said Hammond into the Comm after looking at Sgt. Siler and a Navy Captain who was a Specialist on the Cruise missile systems.

"_Roger."_

Thousands of light years away, over one of Anubis' tertiary Naquadah mining worlds, the Prometheus turned her ridiculously overpowered secondary bow mounted sensor array (which was a standard LIDAR system) and shot pin point beams of invisible laser energy towards the three Goa'uld pyramids that were rather stupidly clustered close together. (Then again, the Goa'uld had never really fought an opponent on near-equal terms, nor one with the capabilities and military mindset of Earth.). The second beam was focused on the open-cast Naquadah mine.

"_SGC, you are go."_

Hammond walked over to the main console on which the Dailing computer was situated and typed in an authorization code, the screen changed and flashed a red warning. The General paused and a grim smile overtook his features, as his finger hovered over the 'Enter' button on the keyboard.

"This has been a long time coming," said the man who had written one too many eulogy letters that was filled with lies on how his men had died in combat. Too many times had they merely reacted to Goa'uld aggression and attacks, too many times were they on the defensive…his finger rapped on the button sharply…and everything changed.

The Gate Room was suddenly filled with a bright flash that died suddenly and plumes of rocket exhaust abruptly obscured the view. The Tomahawk leapt forward out of its launcher and covered the distance to the event horizon within less than a second. Another flash, and a second one leapt through.

On the Mining world, the two Tomahawks streaked out of the event horizon and angled themselves immediately on an upward trajectory. Each missile's guidance system abruptly focused on the specific frequency of laser energy, and they started to correct their flight paths to their respective targets.

The first Tomahawk reached its target five minutes after launch. It activated its terminal guidance system, which gave its internal systems the signal to activate its one thousand pound explosive package; five hundred pounds of Potassium was abruptly forced into contact with five hundred pounds of weapons grade Naquadah using a specially shaped charge of C4. The resulting explosion was easily visible from orbit…the pressure and displacement was enough to send clouds streaking away from the epicenter of the explosion…which was the central pyramid. A massive shockwave of energy now streaked outwards decimating everything within twenty miles in every direction and sending the dreaded pluming mushroom cloud into the air.

The second Tomahawk had made enough distance that it was out of range of the destructive power that its colleague had unleashed, just in case though, a one use Firestorm shield had been crudely cobbled together on it.

It had to eventually engage its Turbofan engines as the Naquadah mine was rather distant from the refining facility that had just been destroyed (Naquadah was apparently flown by Cargo Ship back and forth).

When the second Tomahawk reached its target, its thousand pounds of destruction was vastly different, but was ideal for 'soft targets' such as the mine. The slaves being used to mine the Naquadah were not there. And this was where the Tok'ra had come in mighty handy. They had had an agent penetrate the planet whom had promptly begun to move amongst the slaves (most of whom were Jaffa who refused to serve Anubis) and spread word about the impending attack. The agent had also secreted numerous Terran small arms to the slaves, and when the word had been given, a swift insurrection started. The slaves had commandeered the Cargo ships and gotten out a mere two minutes before the attack had been launched. And here also was the reason the orbiting Ha'taks had been caught by surprise; their attentions had been on the slave insurrection.

The Tomahawk burst open and abruptly a massive aerosol cloud of high-octane fuel spread over the target, the embedded detonator detached itself as well, and when it detected the saturation conditions were perfect, created a tiny flame. The resultant explosion and overpressure absolutely devastated the mine and every bit of equipment that had been left in the open. The shockwave uprooted nearby trees and sent them flying for miles…the ground seemed pull itself apart at the seams as nature tried to fill the artificially created vacuum.

"_SGC, this is Prometheus Actual, we have confirmed detonations, primary targets destroyed._"

Various exclamations and hisses of satisfaction and victory were heard throughout the Control room; Hammond only allowed himself a grim nod of satisfaction.

"We copy Prometheus Actual, RTB, and thank Achilles Actual for holding our hands on this one," said Hammond.

"Roger that."

Harry merely grinned at hearing that as the Stargate shut down and without needing prompting, the F302s landed themselves on the _Prometheus_ and both ships swerved out of orbit and vanished into Hyperspace.

**SGC, Earth, Harry & Sam's Lab**

Harry focused on the pulsing blue square device that was roughly the size of two Desktop computers and carefully used a tiny adjustment laser to temper the variance on the crystals and circuits within the device. Abruptly the power supply sparked. He let out a startled exclamation of surprise and flinched back.

"Bloody hell," he mumbled to himself. He noticed Sam smirking at him from across the lab where she was speaking on videoconference to the Antarctic Base that was researching the area where the second Stargate had been discovered 'accidentally' over five years ago.

"It's a blip," said Dr Michaels, the lead research scientist and nominally in charge of the small SGC Antarctic Base. Harry only knew her by reputation as a very competent scientist and that she received glowing performance appraisals wherever she went, he could only vaguely recall having seen a photo of her. "A shadow on the ultrasound. Too deep to tell. You know, maybe a dead seal. Anyway, we're gonna rule it out and pack up for the season. Another week or two, it'll be dark most of the time, much too cold to work outside. As far as coming back next year, well, you know it's not up to me. The Pentagon reevaluates our position here every year…though I suppose that decision is now in the hands of the STO. Take it up with them."

"Well, I'm sure my new conclusions about the DHD that we discovered down there would be enough to convince the Council that we should continue," said Sam earnestly, staring into the small camera mounted on top of the plasma screen of her computer.

"I'm sure coming from you, that it will hold more weight," said Dr Michaels, Harry heard her rueful tone even over the speakers.

"The one found with the Antarctic Gate died shortly after it was brought to Area 51," said Sam, this perked Harry up, she had not yet shared her own findings even with him. She briefly glanced at him and grinned at his eagerness. "It was used a few times and just ran out of energy. This was the first indication we had the power sources fueling the Gate technology have a limited life span. We've run a number of tests comparing the power source to other off-world DHDs. We think we now have evidence that the Gate we found down there is one of the oldest in the entire system. It could be as much as fifty million years old."

Harry blinked in astonishment, the Beta Gate was that old! Dr Michaels clearly shared his feelings.

"The Antarctic Plate wasn't covered by a glacier back then. It wasn't even at the South Pole!"

"Well, the Gate didn't necessarily originate there," said Sam reasonably, "it could have been moved from another planet at any point in time, but that's what we need to try and determine."

"How?" asked Michaels.

"There has to be something else down there," insisted Sam.

Harry heard Michaels' frustrated sigh. "We've been here four years running. Since we dug out those two Jaffa we've found nothing. If this latest lead turns out to be…"

The scientist was distracted when a door opened off screen.

"Hey Michaels, the thing in the ice," said an unknown voice of a man that Harry assumed was another researcher.

"It's something!" said another voice excitedly.

"Sorry, but anything that has those two this excited has to be checked out," said Dr Michaels with a smile. "I'll get back to you."

"See you soon," nodded Sam, and clicked off the secure video link.

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**High Earth Orbit**

The MEV streaked through space unseen as its sophisticated Cloaking system was online. The cylindrical craft rotated as if to give its occupants inside a better view of the Earth that was gleaming below them. This was in fact the purpose of the maneuver.

"Amazing," said Jonas with an awed smile, leaning on the DHD console to look out.

"First time in space," observed Jack from the co-pilot seat with a frown, as he remembered that it was indeed the Kelownan's first time in the void.

"Easy on the newbie, Jack," said Harry with a grin, his hands on the control surface, while his mind monitored the MEVs systems and steered the craft.

"On my planet we've only begun to theorize that space travel was possible at all," said Jonas eagerly.

"Well, it's amazing all right…until something goes horribly, _horribly_ wrong," said Jack with a wearied sigh.

"I believe it is Dr Frasier's first time as well," said Teal'C stoically. Harry glanced into the rear compartment where Janet was busily going through some medical gear she had brought with.

"Don't remind me," came her mumble as she focused on checklisting her gear.

"Come now Doctor," said Harry with a grin, "the MEV is, as Jack would say, the Cadillac of space vehicles. You've been through the Stargate many times, this should be a walk in the park." Janet's only response was to smile evilly at him…it was a familiar smile that promised a full physical of very large needles in his future. Harry turned his seat back to face forward and repressed a wince and focused on flying.

The craft streaked towards the southern pole of Earth and within barely twenty minutes they were back in the atmosphere descending towards the Antarctic Glacier; where the strong winds and cloud cover forced Harry to close his eyes and merge his consciousness fully with the ship's systems. Sam had to quickly calm down an alarmed Jonas who had initially thought that Harry had fallen asleep at the controls.

Soon billowing torrents of snow streaked past the forward viewscreen and for Jonas' piece of mind he brought up a holographic sensor overlay, which clearly showed that the MEV was still on a controlled descent towards the Research base.

When they finally touched down, Harry had made sure to land with the rear hatch facing the main garage entrance to the Dome base with only five meters between the two. The Research base had its own airfield but it was getting too dangerous to fly with standard aircraft, hence the reason for the MEVs use.

All of SG1 was kitted out in thick cold weather clothing, while Harry was content to be the odd one out with his Chromesuit…since it was technically a spacesuit, he didn't have to bother with the bulky cloths. He willed the suit to run up his neck and with a flash, the conforming transparent helmet appeared. He glanced back at SG1 and Dr Frasier to make sure they were ready for the cold and pulled on the small release leaver, only for a blast of frigid Antarctic air to hit them.

The group hurried out and Harry sent a mental command to the MEV. It decloaked and abruptly a slight shimmering effect appeared all over it. It wasn't a shield per se, that would drain the power of the MEV quite fast, but it was a low tuned energy field that would melt snow that collided with it.

The garage door opened and they hurried in, slugging their luggage in duffel bags. Dr Michaels and the two other occupants of the small base met them. Michaels herself was a rather pretty woman with dark black hair and a face that hinted of Native American Indian ancestry.

"Hi," said Sam, starting introductions by shaking Michaels hand.

"Hi, its finally nice to meet you, Major," she said with a charming smile.

"This is Ambassador Harry Potter," said Sam, gesturing, and Harry also shook hands.

"It's an honor, Ambassador," said Michaels with a nod.

"This is Dr Frasier."

"Doctor."

"Doctor."

"Uh…this is Doctors Woods and Osborne," said Michaels indicating her two male colleagues.

"Doctor."

"Doctor."

"Major."

"Ambassador."

"Major."

"Doctor."

The round robin of introductions was interrupted by a rather exasperated Jack.

"All right, that's enough," he said mildly.

"Well, welcome to the Antarctic, Colonel," said Osborne, a thin mustached man with brown hair, while his colleague Dr Woods was rather tall and looked like he had just done some major weight loss.

"Thanks," said Jack, "great to be back."

"Let's go inside," said Osborne.

The group walked from the snow covered garage entryway through another door into a much warmer hallway, which led into the main dome. The main room was a central hub which had doorways leading off to various other parts of the dome; quarters for personnel, kitchen, main lab, entertainment area and so forth.

"How long is this gonna take?" asked Jonas, referring to their stay and analysis of the specimen.

"A few days, maybe more, why?" asked Woods.

"Long range forecast doesn't look good."

Harry heard Sam whisper to Michaels that Jonas was a bit of a weather freak. Harry grinned inwardly at that, it had been quite amusing to see how fond the Kelownan had become of the Weather Channel. Jonas found it amazing that you could predict the weather up to a month ahead of time.

The team began to unzip their heavy jackets but Michaels stopped them.

"Uh…you might want to keep your coats on. We're keeping the quarantine lab below freezing to maintain the specimen." The group nodded and only removed their headgear and dumped it with their luggage in the hub.

Harry willed his Chromesuit to dematerialize his helmet, but frowned in confusion when the suit wouldn't let him. He gave a mental query as to why and gave a silent cry of dismay when the suit AI gave him an answer. His shoulders slumped as he considered what to do now.

"Harry?" prompted Sam, as she let everyone into the quarantine lab. His first irrational impulse was to rage and storm in anger at Fate. He quickly banished that and turned the energy into finding a solution…one that would hopefully save everyone's life.

"Coming," he said shortly and walked forward with a purposeful stride that would no doubt send alarm bells ringing in Sam's mind.

They entered the quarantine lab. It consisted of two parts; on one side was the safe zone, which held banks of computers and various other machines used for research, this looked out onto the main lab, which was hermetically sealed from the rest of the base. Inside this lab on a long table was a large near coffin-sized block of ice. There was a darkened shape within the ice that if you looked long and hard enough could be a humanoid body.

"After digging up those Jaffa the first year, we expected to find a lot more a lot faster," said Woods.

Everyone gathered around the table and regarded the block of ice.

"I named her Aiyana," said Michaels. "It means eternal bloom."

"Native American Indian?" asked Jonas curiously.

"Mm hmm, my grandfather was one-quarter Cherokee," said Michaels rather proudly.

"How do you know it's a she?" asked Janet.

"Ultrasound."

"You're guessing," objected Woods.

"The form appears to be female," said Michaels with an indulgent smile at her colleague, "although I admit, it's hard to tell for sure."

"Have you made a guess about her age?" asked Janet.

"About 25 to 35?" she said, glancing at Osborne.

"Give or take _several million years_," said the man in question with huge emphasis.

"Several million?" said Sam in astonishment.

"That what preliminary analysis of the oxygen content in the ice indicates," said Woods.

"If that's true, then couldn't this person perhaps be from the First evolution," said Jonas, glancing at Harry.

"That's highly probable," said Harry.

"Let's not jump the gun yet," said Michaels reasonably, "as you said, Major, evidence now points to the Stargate being there before the glacier."

"The Jaffa found near the Stargate could not have been frozen that long ago," said Teal'C in thought.

"Not even close," agreed Michaels.

"Dr. Jackson theorized that when the Gate from Giza was buried roughly 2000 years ago that the Goa'uld managed to open up the Antarctic Gate," said Jonas.

"Well, that's because a crevasse was formed. It allowed the wormhole to connect and ultimately create a larger opening. The Jaffa were frozen after that," explained Sam.

"But she wasn't," said Janet, pointing to the ice block.

"Much before that."

"So she's neither Jaffa, nor Goa'uld…could she perhaps be an Ancient?" said Teal'C stoically.

"I can think of no way to be sure at the moment," said Micheals, "whoever this is, she was probably around when the first Antarctic Gate was being used."

"We need to take more core samples to determine if she was actually frozen in the same vein," said Osborne thoughtfully. Janet walked around the ice block to stand next to Michaels and studied the ice as if demanding that it suddenly grow a mouth and answer her questions. She fingered a hole in the ice that Harry instantly knew was the source of the current crisis…not that anyone knew they were in a crisis. He was wondering when he could break the news to them.

"Did you do a tissue sample?" asked Janet.

"Yes, I'd like you to have a look," said Micheals.

"Listen, could somebody bottom line this for me?" asked Jack with a heavy sigh.

"Well, sir," said Janet, "we could be looking at the first local terrestrial evidence that human beings evolved long before we thought they did, as the Ambassador has made quite clear to us."

"And maybe not even originally on this planet," said Michaels.

"Darwin would be crushed," said Jack airily.

Harry cleared his throat pointedly to get everyone's attention. "As much as I'd like to see the first evidence of the Ancients on Terra unearthed for you all to see. I'm afraid we have a serious problem on our hands."

"What do you mean?" asked Sam.

"P4X-639," said Harry pointedly.

"The Time Loop thingamabob?" said Jack immediately.

"Yes," nodded Harry.

"Oh yes," said Jonas, "I read about that, the Colonel and Teal'C along with an entire sector of the Galaxy was stuck in a seemingly irreversible Time Loop, and repeated the same eight hours, over and over again…for what to the outside observer is believed to have been nine months."

"That brings back memories," said Jack, a sudden grin on his face and twinkle in his eye as he stared at Sam.

"Yes, well," said Harry, "while I was stuck outside the Time Loop, after it was broken, I did as much research as I had time on it afterwards. You see, the Time Loop device was created by the Ancients to reverse Time, as it were, and develop a cure to a plague. They were going to give the cure to their past selves in the hope to reverse all the deaths that had been caused by the Plague, which had all but wiped out their civilization. However, at the time the Ancients couldn't get it work, Time just looped itself over and over again. So they shut the machine down and bowed to the inevitable fall of their civilization and left the Galaxy. Now…and this is important, only those Ancients who remained uninfected left…those who couldn't be saved…were left behind."

"Oh my goodness…" said Janet, her face blanching. "Are you saying…"

"Yes," nodded Harry. "Aiyana is infected. When Dr Michaels did a tissue sample, it thawed and was released into the air."

"Wait a second, how can you be sure?" asked Sam.

"My Chromesuit," said Harry, "it detected the Plague as I entered and wouldn't let me disengage my helmet."

"Assuming that's the case," said Michaels with deep worry evident on her face, "I used biohazard protocols when working with the sample…"

"Standard lab biohazard won't stop this Plague," said Harry pointedly. "You'd need to at least have Level 5 Biohazard protocols, such as those the Army uses when dealing with Ebola virus and the like."

"So you're saying we're all infected with some bad-ass bug that nearly wiped out the Ancients?" said Jack grimly.

"Yes, except for Teal'C who's larval symbiote would protect him and me," said Harry, who took cognizance of the skeptical looks on Woods and Osborne's faces. "With Dr Frasier's help I can show you…"

And so two hours later, using the electron microscope that was present in the lab, Harry showed them the Plague in all its tiny ugly glory.

"There it is," he said, gesturing at the plasma screen, "the tiny little thing that nearly defeated the most powerful race to inhabit the stars."

"What are its symptoms?" asked Janet.

"High fever, followed by chest pains, dizziness, finally you collapse and lose consciousness," he explained. "Then when you wake up, the disease has fully asserted itself in your system and you only have a few days to live, an Alteran would last for a few weeks. It's somewhat ironic that their advanced immune systems actually contributed to the Plague's effectiveness; as it delayed their becoming aware of its presence. Anyway, the closest comparison to a Terran disease I can draw is that this little super-bug acts like the meaner cousin of Cerebral-Spinal Meningitis."

Janet looked like somebody had pole-axed her.

"Ok," said Jack slowly, "why are you speaking of our impending deaths in such a blasé manner?"

"Because this super-bug _was_ impossible to stop after it had asserted itself five million years ago, when Aiyana was walking around, but you see, the Ancients left and their medical technology conquered this version of the bug in the meantime."

"So there is a cure?" asked Jonas hopefully.

"Ummm, yes," everyone sighed in relief, "but the Alterans were working with their own physiology, you see, the cure would not work for Terrans," said Harry with a wince as everyone's faces turned to scowls. "But…I've got an idea."

"Enlighten us," said Jack dryly.

"I can't cure you, but I can cure Aiyana…after we defrost her, of course."

"Ummm…Harry, Aiyana is a frozen corpse," said Sam slowly, looking at him like he had grown an extra head, a look that was mirrored by Janet.

"Well, it depends on a number of things, but I doubt that's the case," said Harry, his eyes twinkling enigmatically.

"I think he might be right," said Dr Michaels eventually.

"What do you mean?" demanded Janet. Clearly to her current frame of reference it was medically impossible.

"Take a look at my sample of Aiyana's tissue." She went over to the microscope and swapped the virus sample with the tissue from Aiyana. Janet stared into it and her body jerked in surprise.

"This is incredible," said Janet.

"I know," said Michaels, "no adipocere."

"What's that?" asked Jonas.

"It's a residue that forms on dead animal tissue when exposed to moisture," explained Janet. "But what's even more amazing is that these cells are intact."

"That's what I'd hoped you say," said Michaels ruefully, "I thought I was losing my mind."

"I'm sorry…uh…what?" said Jonas, apparently speaking for all the non-medical trained present.

"When you freeze live cells, crystals form and ultimately destroy the integrity of the cell. That's why we haven't been able to develop a viable method of human cryogenic preservation."

"So…"

"These cells from Aiyana are perfect, they could be from you or me," said Janet, staring at Harry in amazement.

"Ok," said Jonas, "but say we defrost Aiyana, the Ambassador cures her, but how does that help us…"

"Dr Frasier," said Harry with an arched eyebrow, "what ability have you recently developed?"

"Touch Healing…" she said wonderingly, staring at the ice cube, seeing where Harry was going. "But will she have that ability?"

"All Ancients developed it eventually," said Harry with a shrug, "Touch Healing is merely a forceful reapplication of energy at a level you have only scraped the surface of."

"Then what are we waiting for?" snapped Jack, "lets unthaw us an Alteran."

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She did not know how long she had remained unconscious. She did not know what was going on. She didn't remember her own name. Her mind was an indecipherable jumble of memories and thoughts. Her body felt cold, too cold…yet the biting sting of it was slowly leaving her, there was powerful heat sources around her lending her vital energy.

In that moment, she remembered mind-speaking to Julius, the terrible news he brought her.

The great city was leaving.

And they were being left behind.

The Plague had been too much for her people, the Galaxy all but lifeless in the wake of it, added to that the homeworld was in the grip of a relentless ice age.

She intellectually understood the others' decision. But her heart never would.

She felt her eyes blink open and the strangest sight she had ever seen assaulted her senses. There were two faces hovering over her. Both were female and had blue and hazel eyes respectively, yet their mouths and noses were covered with a strap of blue material. Hovering beyond them was an apparatus that was emitting pulsing red light…ah, the source of the heat.

She took a deep breath of air and rejoiced in the feeling. But her heart caught up with her and more memories surfaced, she grew panicked and tears started to fall. She remembered the Plague taking her consciousness, just as the Outpost's Power Module finally reached maximum entropy; the lights went off, the last she saw was the ceiling overhead…before everything went black.

She vaguely heard a male voice speaking in an unfamiliar language before she felt a pair of arms surround her in embrace. Her sobbing wrenched out of her painfully and she was too much in anguish to care over which stranger was giving such comfort so freely.

She barely felt herself fall asleep again.

When consciousness returned the bed she was on had been slightly raised, allowing her to see her environment for the first time. She was in some form of laboratory, but not one she had ever dreamed could be called as such. The walls were made of reflective glossy material…_artificially structured polymers_…she blinked, puzzled as to how she could suddenly know and understand that. Various devices surrounded the bed that were emitting constant harmonic sounds, and some of them were connected to her; one over her finger…_heartbeat sensor_… there it was again….another device was administering fluid into her body…_programmed medication dispersal_…what was the medicine doing…_restoring electrolytes_…she blinked and forcefully stopped asking questions.

Whatever was happening, it was clear that she was being helped. She looked to her left and through a window could see a gathering of people wearing strange colored clothing…the strangest of which seemed to be a suit made of semi-fluidic alloy that clung to the tall, powerfully built man like a second skin…a transparent helmet covered his head ergonomically.

She could hear what they were saying, but it was all gibberish to her…it was like no language she had ever heard, yet occasionally she thought she heard a familiar sound or phonetic that seemed to derive from her own language.

The man bobbed his head at another older gray haired one that seemed to carry an air of leadership around him that even she could sense with her fragmented mind. Now the silver suited man and another younger one wearing the green and black intricately weaved clothing approached the doors to the laboratory and entered the room.

The young one had an eager smile and curiosity shining from his face, while the other merely smiled through his helmet at her and bowed his head in greeting. Despite the seemingly warm welcome she could not keep the apprehension and slight fear from showing on her face.

The young one began to speak, very slowly, but it still did nothing to help her understand him. Her face scrunched up in frustration…she wished she could speak…but she did not even know where to begin…her vocal chords felt as if someone had rearranged them and forgot to tell her.

The man in the silver suit shook his head at the young one; his messy black hair rippling within the helmet. He spoke and then turned to her.

"_An agnosco ego_?"

She blinked in astonishment as that certainly sounded like her language but the vocabulary was unfamiliar.

"Ego…" he pointed towards his own chest… "…Ha-ree…"

She strained and pulled at the fragments of her mind, she felt her lips parting and her teeth opened…

"…Ha…reee…" she managed to mumble out, staring at the man as his green eyes twinkled in triumph as he heard the sound come from her mouth.

"_Etiam_," said the man, bobbing his head. He now pointed to the younger looking man beside him. "_Hoc Jonaas_."

"Jo…naas," she managed. The two men now began speaking to each other again in that odd language, but her attention was diverted to an irritation on her right upper arm. A square piece of adhesive absorbent cloth was attached there. The man walked around the bed and slowly reached over to pull it off to reveal unblemished skin. The younger one looked amazed at that for some reason.

The man now sat on the edge of the bed, and his eyes sought to meet hers. She tried to resist…what is he doing…_mind-speaking_…came the answer again.

The laboratory around her melted away from vision and the world flashed. The next thing she knew was that she was standing on the balcony of her apartment in the great city, looking out at the tall spires glinting in the sun. Beyond the city perimeter was the homeworld, as it had once been, before the ice age…green lush forests, birds flitting past…it was wonderful to see again…but made her feel extremely melancholy.

"Wonderful view," stated the silver suited man. She started in surprise, as he was standing on the other side of the balcony.

"Who are you? How did we get here?" she demanded, but blinked when she realized she had actually spoken a coherent sentence.

"Right down to business, then," nodded the man. "My name is Harry. And 'here', well, we are in a very lovely part of your fragmented mind that I found. To best put you at ease, since the news I have to impart to you will be…difficult to accept."

"Oh," she said, blinking. "How come I can speak here?"

"Ah," said Harry his shoulders drooping slightly, "well, we can communicate because I am helping to 'pull' your mind together, as we speak. I'm speaking through the language center of your brain; its doing the 'translating'." She winced as more concepts and ideas to support what Harry was saying was revealed to her. "What is this?" she asked holding her head in her hands.

"It's our Legacy, my dear," said Harry mildly. "The knowledge of the Universe unfolding in your mind, or rather, merely being remembered is the correct term."

She whirled to face Harry in astonishment. "You're Alteran!" she blurted.

"Yes," nodded Harry. The next thing she knew was that she was hugging Harry in blessed relief and her eyes were filled with tears.

"So you came back for us?" she said with a great smile, after parting from his embrace. Harry visibly winced and his head fell.

"Please," he said sadly, "have a seat." He gestured to the side with his hand and abruptly a chair appeared out of nowhere. She was amazed at the display of Thought Construction, and she wondered if this was merely because they were within the mind, or if Harry could do it in the physical plane as well. Her Legacy answered her. She sat on the comfortable chair and only now realized that she was wearing the same flowing robe outfit she had worn on that traumatic day she had been left behind.

"Firstly, can I ask your name?"

"I can't really say, it feels like it's there, it just doesn't want to come out," she said in frustration.

"All right, the others you saw have been calling you Aiyana, is it okay if I call by that for the moment?"

"Very well," she said slowly, Aiyana…interesting. "Sounds nice enough."

"Good, Aiyana, I will tell you as much as I have been able to piece together," said Harry somberly, "first, you must be aware, a very, very long time has passed since you…passed out as a result of the Plague."

"How long?" she asked.

"Best guess, five million cycles of Terra around its Sun," he said quickly.

"Five mill…" she said faintly. "How…h-h-how c-can that be?"

"I believe when the Plague overcame you, that something must have happened to the facility you were in, perhaps the power failed or something to that effect," said Harry. "The archeological record indicates that it was an Ice Age at the time, and with the life support systems down, the place you fell in quickly filled with snow and frigid air…you were frozen, placed in an accidental natural cryogenic hibernation."

Silence fell, as she tried to absorb the idea of it. It was plausible; her physiology was capable of it, that much she now remembered.

"Go on…"

"The Alteran's left this Galaxy for another, and there they started over," explained Harry. "What happened there, I do not know, but ten thousand years ago, they returned and found that in the meantime, life had flourished again. To their utter astonishment they found that on Terra, sentient beings had evolved that looked just like they did, however they were still primitive, they were called Terrans. There was no hope to live amongst them and rebuild…so the Alteran's decided to each go their own way. Some decided to help advance the Terrans much as they had done for the Asgard so long ago, others decided to focus on leaving the physical plane altogether for an existence of pure energy…"

And so on it went…Harry continued to recite for her the tale of recent history. The tales of the Goa'uld made her sick to her stomach, the Tok'ra intrigued her, the Asgard saddened her by what they had allowed to come to pass in the former Alteran home Galaxy; how they were in a desperate struggle for genetic survival. How the Terrans were finally coming into their own and the War that now engulfed the Galaxy.

"I think it time you get something solid to eat," said Harry after he concluded his tale. Aiyana nodded and abruptly the world around her dissolved again and she was back on her bed in the laboratory. Harry smiled at her and nodded, getting off the bed and stretching. He spoke in that language he called 'English' to Jonas and headed out of the lab.

Jonas returned later with a tray of what appeared to be food, but seemed to have been vacuum packed and reheated, leaving it a bland taste. As she was eating Jonas showed her a book with various hand drawn pictures in, most prominent was the Astria Porta. The young man was seemingly determined to help her understand and speak English…the grammar structure was rather easy she deduced as Jonas continued…now it was just a question on vocabulary…talking it would take much longer…she suspected the part of her mind that governed physical speech was damaged and would take a long time to heal.

She finished eating and Jonas continued to babble English at her.

Harry returned an hour later and her eyes glued themselves to what he was carrying. It was a stylized naquadah cube device that was encrusted with Alteran characters. He nodded at Jonas and briefly spoke to him…something about…needing to be far away. Jonas nodded and raced out of the laboratory.

She pointed to the device and her eyes shone in curiosity.

"_Aiyana, this is…_" he spoke now in her ancient dialect of Alteran, clearly he had helped himself to the knowledge while they had been mind-speaking, she didn't really mind, as all things considered it was rather trivial, "…_a device the Alterans developed to cure the Plague_." Her eyes spoke volumes, relief, hope, amazement, it was finally going to end, the certainty of death at the hands of the Plague.

Harry touched a few of the Alteran characters in a specific sequence, and abruptly the device flared to brilliant life…it shone with radiant silver energy that lit up the laboratory. He moved the device to rest on her lap.

"_Once it is done, I think you will find your mind will be much more coherent, I think we could even have a proper conversation,_" he smiled.

The Healing device hummed and now she a feeling of such utter contentment and safety overwhelmed her that she leaned back into the bed and closed her eyes, allowing the energy to do its work. She could feel her body rallying and beating back the disease.

"_I will be an hour until the treatment is over_," said Harry, _"then we must wait a day, and then another treatment of an hour…within a week you will be free of it_."

It was when he finally switched off the device that Aiyana suddenly realized something.

"The others here, the Terrans, are they not infected because of me?" she mind-speaked to him after catching his eyes.

"_Yes, they are infected,_" he said, _"I was lucky that my Chromesuit detected it and remained sealed as I walked into the dome. It is why I will need your help by tomorrow, as already Dr Michaels has fallen ill, and is running a fever_."

"What could I do against the Plague?" she mind-said, looking at him as if he were crazy. "Our best medical scientists of the time could do nothing…every Touch Healer was foiled…"

"_Ah, but that is because then, there was no cure_," said Harry, "_and I think you will find that Terran physiology will 'listen' well to the Touch Healing and will cure itself. Have faith; I am confidant that you will rediscover the ability soon, especially with the device helping you along_."

She wished she had such confidence.

Harry entered the makeshift Infirmary that had been set up in the crew quarters. Dr Michaels was on a bed; perspiring and breathing heavily, while Janet was wiping her face clear of sweat. He could hear Jack in the adjoining room talking into the radio, trying to contact Osborne and Woods, who had despite Harry advising against it, gone outside to get the final ice core samples that would conclusively prove Aiyana's origins.

"How is she?"

"Not good, Ambassador," said Janet, shaking her head, "her fever won't come down, I gave her anti-viral's but its not doing much. This Plague is fast."

"Woods and Osborne still aren't back and they're not responding to radio," said Harry.

"If they developed the same symptoms as Michaels, they could be weak, disoriented or even passed out."

"Help!"

Harry whirled around at the sound of the cry, and rushed out of the room towards the entrance garage, Jack, Sam, and Teal'C had also responded.

Osborne was back and he was lying on the ground, with a thick plastic suitcase still clutched in his hand.

"The core samples," gasped Osborne.

"Where's Woods?" asked Jack as they helped the sick man out of his headgear and onto his feet.

"Got seperated…hoping he made his way back here."

"What about the snow cat?"

"Got stuck in a drift," said Osborne, shaking his head as they guided him to the infirmary.

"It's minus thirty out there, he won't last long," said Sam grimly.

"I will head out in the MEV and do a low level search," said Harry determinedly, "it still has its beaming capabilities. Besides all of you need to keep your metabolisms low…no exertion, you'll only accelerate the virus' spread in your systems."

He turned around and exited the entrance garage and into the dark snowy night. Not a few moments later they heard the low humm of the MEVs engines as it flew over the dome and vanished into the billowing storm.

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Finding the weak lifesign of Dr Woods was extremely difficult in these weather conditions, so instead Harry scanned for the IPRB that everyone who worked on the Antarctic continent had. Short for International Portable Rescue Beacon, it was to be activated in exactly such a situation; if you ever find yourself lost outside during night with the snow so thick your visibility was near zero, you activated the beacon. Immediately he found the rather weak signal, (no doubt thanks to the extreme cold that was messing with its electronics) and guided the MEV in the southerly direction towards it.

It was only when he was twenty meters from the beacon that the sensors found Woods' lifesign. And a mental command later, the ringing chime of a transporter was heard and Woods appeared in between the seats of the rear compartment, looking very close to being a human popsicle.

"Hang on, Woods," said Harry and turned the MEV around back towards the dome, halfway there and once he was sure of its place, he closed his eyes and a moment later Woods vanished in a flash of light. He had beamed the scientist directly into the quarantine lab.

By the time he had landed and walked back into the dome, and into the observation room, it was to see an astonishing sight.

"It's amazing," said Janet, walking up to him. "Aiyana stopped us as we were about to use the paddles to restart his heart, she layed her hands on his forehead and stomach…not two seconds later Woods was fine, perfect health, even healed him from the virus as well apparently."

"I will refrain from saying 'I told you so'," said Harry mischievously.

"Both his feet were frostbitten and now they're as healthy as ever," said Janet, "I think you were right, Harry, this level of Touch Healing I couldn't even come close to achieving."

"Now, now," said Harry sternly, "none of that, you have the ability, its merely a matter of study, understanding and practicing the process and you can eventually achieve the same results as Aiyana. Now, I need everyone to get to crew quarters again, I have to activate the Healing Device again."

"Makes sense," nodded Janet, and abruptly rushed around ordering everyone to evacuate to a safe distance. The Healing Device was also buying more time for the Terrans in the base, as its effects were helping as long as they kept their distance.

Harry entered the lab to find Aiyana studying the Device in question, her fingers glancing over the edges but careful not to touch the activation symbols. She looked up at his approach and smiled weakly. He glanced around and nodded at her. She pressed a few buttons and abruptly the device flared to life again.

"_You've remembered_," said Harry in ancient Alteran. Aiyana nodded. "_Good, after an hour you can try and heal another of the plague. Then we can wait for a day, the Healing Device is also helping the others to an extent. I don't want you to tax yourself by trying to heal all of them at once._"

She nodded, looking pensive as she stared out of the window into the broiling snowstorm.

**MEV in High Earth Orbit**

Harry sat in the co-pilot chair and watched bemusedly as Aiyana took the small craft through its paces. Her excited eyes met his.

"Its' amazing that you still have one of these after so much time has passed," she mind-said.

"_Indeed_," said Harry with a grin, "_I found it on my wife's former homeworld, before it was razed by the Goa'uld. It was within the launch bay of an Alteran Cruiser, the_ Artemis_, in a hidden dry dock bay._"

"You've made improvements," she mind-said.

"_Terrans have a saying, 'Necessity is the mother of invention._'"

"Wise…are they going to be all right?"

"_The SGC has checked everyone thoroughly out, the Plague is gone_," he explained. Harry placed his hands on the control surfaces and after merging his mind said, "_change course to 342mark 030. The Briseus is waiting for us there._"

Aiyana nodded and the craft turned towards the giant saucer shaped ship hovering over Earth patiently waiting for them.

"Interesting design," commented Aiyana.

"_I decided to depart from our ancestors' 'form follows function' approach to our warships,_" said Harry. "_Mainly because she's not just a warship, she's also a relief ship, science vessel, and diplomatic hub all in one. And it only requires one person in a Control Chair to operate. My wife who is fast becoming an excellent Builder,"_ he said with pride, "_uses this one. While my ship of the same class, is currently docked at the Asgard orbital facility around Mars_."

"Is Seaworld beautiful?"

"_As close as you can get to pristine, besides Earth_," said Harry. "_It won't come close to your view from the city-ship, but its as near a place I can find for you to rediscover your place in this Galaxy, and what you wish to do with your future._"

"Thank you," she mind-said suddenly, "for everything."

"_You're welcome,_" smiled Harry. "_Now let me introduce you to my wife, I can tell you two are going to get along famously._"

The MEV raced through space and into the waiting docking bay aboard the _Briseus_. The powerful Alteran Dreadnaught engaged its Stardrive and vanished into Hyperspace.

_A/N: Hope you like all the hints and refs to Atlantis in this chap. Aiyana will be a major character in the future. Please visit my author page for HP:AAJ Tech and Ship Guide. I work on it as I bring in new stuff so check back often if you're that kind of reader who likes the nitty gritty of things. The concept of Alteran Mind Speaking comes from the prologue scenes in Stargate:Atlantis pilot where we see Aiyana just looking at an unknown Alteran, her face is anguished as the unknown dude just looks at her grimly…there was definitely something going on there and then she sees the city rising in the air. Points to whoever can recognize what new technology Sam and Harry is working on ;-) _


	30. Chapter 30

_**Chapter Thirty – Of Voracity and Conceit**_

**SGC, Earth.**

"Ok, now please…work."

_Bzzzttt_.

"Ouch! C_uriosistas ac ad inventio!_"

"Harry?" said Sam in confusion as she stood at the door to their lab. It was early morning and her scientific colleague was on his knees and had most of himself under one of the desks fiddling with something beyond her sight. Her eyes seemed to automatically drift to the rather shapely and straining buttocks encased in the semi-fluidic suit he was wearing. She blinked and hurriedly focused on something else as he crawled out and stood up to face her.

"Good morning, Sam," said Harry, brushing a lock of thick black hair out of his eyes. "You're here rather early."

"Yeah," she nodded, "got a call three hours ago that woke me up. I think we have an emergency situation developing and I have to prepare briefing materials on it."

"I will restrain my curiosity until then," said Harry absently.

"How's the family?"

"Apollonia sends her regards, she and Aiyana are doing the female bonding thing and the twins are wondering when their Aunty Sammy is going to visit again," said Harry, a fond smile growing on his face as he thought about them.

"They can speak properly already?" said Sam in astonishment. "They're barely over fifteen months old."

"They're Alterans," said Harry as if that should've explained everything. "Their pronunciation is atrocious and vocab limited, but we can also communicate through shared feelings and thoughts as well."

Sam shook her head in bemusement and changed the subject, "What's the problem?" she gestured to where he had been kneeling.

"Oh, I've finally finished the prototype quantum computer – got it hooked up to the plasma and keyboard here," he gestured to the desk, "but there are some voltage issues for the internal components that have to be fine tuned, I had to jury rig it to work." He tapped a button on the keyboard and instantly the plasma lit up and showed the main graphic interface for the custom Linux OS that had been developed for the _Prometheus_.

"Wow," said Sam, her mouth curving into an excited smile. "What boot up time was that? I mean I could hardly see the BIOS or any components being enabled."

"The bootup time registers in the nanoseconds, 0.6 nanoseconds to be precise," he said with a grin.

"Amazing," said Sam, walking over to the quantum computer and after a moment's consideration began typing, "let's see how fast we can compute a hyperspace course for a starship like Prometheus…normally it would take six seconds, and that's using multiple networked computers." Her hands finished typing, the navigation program was up and she pressed the enter button. Her jaw dropped. "Three point two seconds! And that's only using a single computer!"

"Cool, isn't it?" said Harry with a manic grin. "I must say we have to get the guy who thought this up and make sure he gets the Nobel Prize or something."

"Absolutely," said Sam, "this will totally revolutionize everything we do in the Starship program, even the SGC. I mean with computing speeds like this…the defense and scientific applications are incalculable. We could overcome the obstacles we've had in designing an Interceptor system and run accurate simulations of astrophysical phenomena within hours instead of weeks, and it can be done aboard ship, without having to wait to send tons of data back to the supercomputers on Earth."

"Well then, why I don't I arrange for this thing's trip to Area 51 and you can get started on that briefing…."

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**SGC Briefing Room 1, Earth**

On the wallscreen was a large blown up picture showing a photo of a balding middle-aged man, dressed as an almost stereotypical academic…tweed, elbow pads, glasses. Sam walked around handing out her prepared briefing folders to General Hammond, SG1 and Harry.

"His name is Doctor Richard Flemming. He's a biologist, formerly a professor of advanced genetics at Stanford."

"Sure. He's famous for developing hybrid strains of disease resistant corn and cotton..." said Jonas. Everyone besides Harry looked at him in curiosity at how he could know this. "I read an article about him in the American Journal for Evolutionary Science..." He went further as their looks continued, Jack was especially potent in his stare, "The base library has a subscription..."

"Anyway, this morning I got a call from him…he sounded extremely weak over the phone…he gave me the impression that he thought he was dying and he knew all about the 'Big Picture' so to speak, even though he's most assuredly not amongst the civilian scientists on the Disclosure list," said Sam darkly.

"So we've got a security breach," concluded Jack.

"Not only that," said Sam, "Flemming works for a company called Immunitech Research, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of Zetatron Industries, the owner of which is a Adrian Conrad." She changed the wallscreen to show a picture of the man in question. "Flemming mentioned when he called me that 'Conrad knows' as well. Now Zetatron was contracted to develop a number of advanced technologies that Area 51 slated for release into the public market. Conrad himself was suffering from a debilitating immune disorder, which would've killed him by now, but an immune booster drug developed out of Area 51 has kept him alive."

"You think Conrad may have put two and two together about the actual origins of the technologies?" said Harry with a raised eyebrow.

"It's possible," admitted Sam. "But I think there's a lot more going on here that we can't see, Flemming mentioned that the project he was working on had gone out of control…"

They were interrupted when Walter rushed up the spiral staircase from the control room, "General, there's a situation developing that I think you need to be aware of…"

"What is it, Walter?" demanded Hammond.

"Reports are coming in that an entire town of people just inexplicably dropped dead," said Walter, thumbing the remote control and changing it to a news feed, which showed an overhead helicopter camera view of bodies in the streets lying sprawled in various poses. "The Army and CDC are mobilizing as fast as they can to seal the town off."

"Sir, we have to go there," said Sam, her face completely white.

"Why? We don't have jurisdiction in something like this."

"Sir, Dr Flemming and Immunitech Research are located in Steveston, Oregon," she said pointing to the wallscreen where the news report showed clearly the identity of the town where everyone had just died.

Hammond's eyes widened. "Ambassador, get the MEV ready, get Dr Frasier to come with, SG1 you have a go, I'll speak to the President. Get moving!"

The MEV rose invisibly out of Cheyenne Moutain and blasted off into the distance, leaving a sonic boom in its wake.

"Easy, easy," winced Jack from the co-pilots chair, his hands also on the control surfaces, "we don't have to go supersonic. We've probably just startled half of Colorado Springs."

"I have a bad feeling about this," grumbled Harry darkly.

"An entire town is dead," said Jack evenly, "of course it will give you a bad feeling."

"Its more that I'm worried about the causes behind it and time is of essence if we want to get the truth."

"How long till we get there?" asked Sam from the seat behind Harry.

"Current speed is Mach 3, we'll get there in seventeen minutes."

"Why are you worried about not getting there in time?" asked Jonas curiously, from the seat behind Jack.

"I didn't have time to check," explained Harry, "but I'm pretty sure I remember from the NID database that Conrad had unofficial ties to them."

"Oh no," groaned Jack. "I thought we had them over a barrel with that database."

"It seems they are trying to slip their leash," said Harry dryly. "If we don't get there before them, all the evidence is going to disappear."

"A town full of dead people isn't going anywhere," pointed out Jonas. Harry merely stared with wide eyes at the Kelownan.

"Jack explain to Jonas the last resort option if any contaminant or disease goes unchecked in small population such as this town," said Harry darkly.

"A three thousand pound Fuel Air Bomb is dropped in the center of the contaminated area, basically wiping out the entire town, the disease or contaminant and any evidence that goes with it," said Jack blandly. Jonas blanched.

"And if it really is the NID behind this, you can bet they will be pushing for that option," said Sam. "If they don't get it, who knows what they will do."

"Ambassador, you can't believe that they would do something intentionally that caused the deaths of an entire town full of people?" said Janet in horror from the rear compartment.

"I don't know," said Harry with a shrug, "do you think they would take their 'by any necessary means' approach that far?"

No one really had an answer to that. Fifteen minutes passed and soon they could see the coastal town of Steveston, Oregon slowly creeping toward them through the forward viewer, as the nearby scenery streaked past in a blur.

"Scanning the town," said Harry, and a holographic overlay appeared to show a wide area overhead view. "No human lifesigns…except for the National Guard and Army units at the far outskirts. Scanners are also picking up no airborne biological diseases or contaminants, so we can forego the Biohaz suits."

"I managed to trace Flemming's call from Immunitech Research itself," said Sam, tapping on her TabletPC and showing it to him, "here are the coordinates." Harry glanced at them and immediately the MEV responded to his thoughts and changed course.

The Immunitech building soon came into view, it was a rather large flat three-floor building and had a campus around it that occupied a rather large footprint.

"Land on the roof," instructed Jack. Harry nodded and the MEV smoothly descended onto the tarred roof of Immunitech. "Ok, Ambassador, continue to run scans of the town, I want to know the instant anything comes our way."

"Got it," nodded Harry and everyone else got their gear together and exited out the rear hatch.

He minimized the lifesign screen and brought the subspace communications online…moments later he was connected to the Achilles AI in orbit around Mars and asked it to do a search the NID database for anything on Steveston, Conrad, and Immunitech Research and send him any relevant data it could find. It acknowledged and now Harry turned the scans to search the town for anything out of the ordinary.

"Ambassador, we still clear up there?" came Jack's voice over the team radio.

"Skies and ground are clear," reported Harry.

"We've found something here, stand by."

"That's odd."

"What is?" asked Sam.

"I've detected a _subspace_ energy signature from the shipyards," said Harry, staring at the hologram screen and scrutinizing the data.

"Those shipyards were closed down a while ago, there shouldn't be anything active there, let alone a subspace signal," said Sam.

"Well, there is definitely something there."

"We've got Dr Flemmings computer and laptop," said Jack, "we're also bringing his body and what looks to be his assistant. So make room up there."

"Copy that," said Harry and headed into the rear compartment to move the team gear off the seats. Five minutes later, Jack and Teal'C entered with two filled black body bags slung over their shoulders and placed them on both benches in the rear compartment. Sam raised the hatch after Janet entered, whereupon the Doctor immediately zipped open a bag and hovered the MEVs handheld medical scanner over the body.

"I managed to access the NID database from here," said Harry taking the pilot's seat. "They did have an op going on in this town. Its not a complete file as it was only in the planning stages when I snatched the database. But it seems they were using Immunitech for stem cell research."

"There's no record of Immunitech doing that area of research," said Jonas.

"Why would they keep that a secret?" asked Teal'C with a raised eyebrow.

"Well, stem cells can be used to create skin grafts or replacement organs, but theoretically, they can also be used to create human clones," explained Janet, looking up from the scanner.

"Which is illegal," said Jonas.

"But I don't think human clones was the idea," disagreed Harry, "the plan indicates that they wanted to use the research while working on an 'organism', the file is deliberately worded vaguely."

"Oh my goodness," said Janet, staring at the scanner as if she had seen a ghost and tapping at it again.

"What?" asked Jack urgently.

"This can't be right," mumbled Janet and hovered the scanner of the dead body of Flemming again. She shook her head and opened the other bag, hovering it over the assistant. "Ambassador, get over here, I want to be sure I'm using this thing right." Hearing the urgency in her tone, Harry jumped out of his seat and took the scanner from her, tapped a few buttons and waved it over the bodies again.

"Bloody hell," he said, "you worked it correctly Doctor, and those are the results."

"Hello? Earth to Doctor Frasier and Ambassador Harry," said Jack sarcastically. "Can you please explain what has your underwear in a bunch?"

"Colonel, both these bodies have trace amounts of the characteristic poison left behind when a Goa'uld dies within its host," said Janet. "I'm also picking up foreign biological matter around the spinal chord, most likely the symbiote itself."

"Tell me you're not implying, what I think you're implying," said Jack sternly, waving a raised finger. Harry rushed back forward and after placing a hand on the control surface, the holograph changed and focused on individual bodies lying in the streets in sequence.

"I'm afraid I'm going to have to disappoint you, Jack, every single body in the building below us and within a hundred meters are showing traces of residual Goa'uld poison."

"What on earth did the NID do? Clone snakes and stick them into these people! And for what?"

"We'll need to decrypt the computer to know more," said Sam grimly.

"Then do it," said Jack snappily. "Get us to the shipyard, Ambassador."

Harry nodded and the MEV powered up and lifted off the roof and made the relatively quick journey to the shipyard.

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**Oval Office, White House, Earth.**

"They did WHAT?" bellowed the President in anger, as he stood behind his desk, with his fists propped on the smooth wooden surface, where a thick file was opened.

Harry in his Alteran robes, General Hammond and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs; General Francis Maynard stood formally in front of the President.

"Using recent advances in stem cell research, and stolen tissue samples from the Goa'uld Tannith that we still have in custody at Area 51, Immunitech cloned numerous symbiotes, Mr President," said General Hammond. "The NID officer we captured at the shipyard, under questioning said that there was an accident with one of the symbiotes and Flemming was the first to be infected. Luckily the symbiotes were still immature and could only exert control for limited periods of time, especially when townspeople fell asleep. From there Flemming infected another, whom in turn infected more and pretty soon the whole town had Tannith symbiotes within their bodies."

"The NID was aware of these events, and did nothing to stop it," continued Hammond. "They did this when it became apparent that the symbiotes were building a spacecraft in an attempt to leave Earth."

"Why would they want a Goa'uld built spacecraft, we've had our own captured Goa'uld mothership for a few years now, we have our own ships now, for crying out loud," said the President in agitation.

"The NID and their unofficial backers wants their own spaceflight capability, Mr President," said Harry, "outside of the purview of the STO. The NID agent was rather…rude and vocal about how America should have kept the Gate to itself and all the technologies gained as a result."

"I also believe that there is more than just misguided patriotism at work here, Mr President," said General Maynard. "They could want FTL spaceflight to restart their thieving ways with regards to offworld technology. In short, they want to make money off selling the technologies on Earth."

"But why did everyone in the town die?"

Harry sighed sadly and shook his head; he had hardly wanted to believe it when the test results came through…but it was all there in black and white, and now he was partially to blame for this mess as well. "It was the Great Leap, Mr President."

"We've determined," said General Hammond, "that our newly enhanced physiologies can fight a Goa'uld blending. It takes a few weeks but eventually the symbiotes within the townspeople died under the onslaught from their newly advanced immune systems…this caused the natural toxin that a Goa'uld releases in death to spread into their body."

"Talk about a double-edged sword," said the President grimly and started to pace behind his desk. "The fallout from this is going to be huge, but we can't let that stand in our way. Generals, Ambassador, I want you to get in touch with certain key members of the FBI we can trust and that are in the loop, my secretary will give you the list, I'll go directly to the Attorney-General with this, I think its high time she was on the Disclosure list anyway."

"What do you wish us to do, Mr President?" said Hammond.

"I want a plan on my desk in a week to rid us of the cancer that has become the NID and find their private backers, this blundering cannot continue, I want them all in SGC custody, understood? I'll have decided by then what to do with them."

"Yes, sir," nodded both Generals. Harry bowed his assent.

"Now excuse me while I try to explain this mess to the STO."

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Two weeks went by and for him it was spent getting the Gate room technicians up to speed on the Quantum Computers. Area 51 had jumped on the prototype like a salivating dog on a juicy piece of meat and the printers over there couldn't reproduce the tech manual Harry had written fast enough. He had in the meantime built another Qomputer (pronounced kwomputer…a tech had jokingly rewritten the title of Harry's manual to save space and the new name was born) to replace the current Dailling Computer used for the Stargate. Meaning, that now accelerated Stargate dialing was the norm, rather than the exception.

As he stared through at Gate from his position at secondary controls, he was immediately reminded of the sheer amount of teams currently offworld. Most of them were the SpecOps boys, and all were engaged in another bout of playing the Goa'uld off against each other by imitating Jaffa and engaging in offensive surgical operations.

This was prompted by the Tok'ra reports that the first round of such attacks had produced limited results, yes, the Goa'uld were shouting at each other, but the solid presence and threat of Anubis still kept them in line. It made Harry believe that there had to be something else out there that would firmly pull the System Lords out of Anubis' corner once and for all, something…

"Incoming wormhole!" announced Walter, in another precognitive flash no doubt, and rushed towards the new Stargate controls. Scientists and techs scattered to their positions. General Hammond rushed down the stairs just as the Stargate flared to life and immediately the Shield and Iris was raised. "SG1 – code red."

"Defense teams to the Gate room," snapped Hammond into the microphone. Two squads of SFs came in and raised PR7 and P-90 towards the Stargate; the latter was borne from the eventuality that like the Replicators, there might be foes out there immune to energy weapons but not standard kinetic weaponry. And the two scaled down Railgun turrets on either side of the gate were manned as well.

"Raising Shield, opening Iris," reported Walter. Both defense systems went off line and through the event horizon a harried Sam burst through, aiming her weapon backwards. Orange staff blasts followed and she did a roll down the ramp to avoid the lethal energy, which smacked into the perimeter shields. Jonas came next, less gracefully and tumbled down. Teal'C was next and he rolled through the event horizon as staff blasts continued to surge through… it was then as soon as Teal'C recovered that he gave a command that surprised everyone…

"Raise the shield!"

Gate protocol dictated that Walter and even Hammond had to follow it, since a team member would have better knowledge of the tactical situation on the other side of the Gate. The shield went up and immediately it flared brightly three times…the shape of the flare clearly showed that three persons had just been vaporized, and finally numerous more staff blasts before the wormhole flared out.

"Bury the Stargate," ordered Hammond grimly. Another recent protocol was that immediately following an attack that flared through into the Base was over that the Gate was to be disabled for fifteen minutes, in case the enemy on the other side tried to keep Earth's Stargate busy by constantly dialing in. The motors on the rails keeping the Gate in place revved up and immediately the Gate moved backwards and slotted into the concrete slab in the back of the room.

Harry and Hammond entered the Gate room just as the perimeter shields were lowered and medics were already attending to the various scrapes, cuts and bruises on SG1…minus one.

"Major Carter," said Hammond, "where is the Colonel?"

Sam looked deeply worried and she shrugged off the medic's attentions and stood to address the General, "we were overwhelmed by Jaffa, sir."

"There was no indication of Goa'uld presence on that planet before," said Hammond.

"Yes, sir," agreed Sam, "it was a routine exploration op, when a squadron of Alkesh loaded with Jaffa appeared in the skies. The first thing they did was secure the Gate and cut off our escape, we'd been playing cat and mouse with them for two days until we made our bid to retake the Stargate. The Colonel…he…created a massive diversion for us…it's the only reason we're here…the last we saw his position was being overrun. He ordered us to…" she couldn't finish and struggled to stop tears.

"Very well," said Hammond with a troubled yet strong voice nevertheless, "report to the infirmary, I want a debrief as soon as humanly possible."

**SGC Briefing Room 1, Earth**

Teal'C looked like he was ready to snap the conference table in half, Jonas looked fatigued beyond measure, and Sam was standing and delivered the debriefing to Harry and General Hammond and Colonel Reynolds of SG3.

"I can only conclude, sir," said Sam, "that the Goa'uld were intentionally there to capture us. We were barely six hours away from the Gate on foot when the ships descended on the area. They deployed Jaffa from the Alkesh in an enveloping pattern to box us in an ever-decreasing space. It's only thanks to the AW systems on our armor and Teal'C's knowledge of the technique that we avoided them for so long."

"No sign of a mothership?" asked Harry.

"No, if that was the case then we would all most assuredly have been in enemy hands now, as they never seemed to receive reinforcements from the Rings near the Stargate, they only descended by Ringing down from the Alkesh."

"Did you see whom the Jaffa belonged to?" asked Hammond, turning to Teal'C.

"Ba'al," said Teal'C stoically, but his gaze showed that he was ready to tear apart the Galaxy to find Jack, assuming he was still alive.

"Then how did he know that there would be an SG team there?" asked Reynolds.

"That's the big issue that I haven't figured out yet," said Sam, shaking her head.

"Get on it people, we need to know if we've somehow been compromised, dismissed."

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**Starship Achilles, High Earth Orbit**

Later that day, Harry, Sam, Teal'C, Jonas and Reynolds stood in the main hexagonal holographic lab on board the _Achilles_. He had brought them here on the rationalization that if the SGC was somehow compromised that it would be best if they did the work of trying to un-compromise it somewhere else.

"Ok," started Harry, "just to rule it out right off the bat, none of us have a Goa'uld within us." He placed a hand on the control pedestal and immediately the matter transmission logs began scrolling in mid-air. "This is the transporter data…it would've detected a symbiote during the rematerialization process…Sam, can you confirm to prove that I'm not infected or have manipulated this data in any way?"

She walked up to the data displayed in mid-air and eventually nodded. "You're clean."

"Good, because I can categorically state that there is no blended human/symbiote lifesign in the SGC or in the US, nor on the planet," said Harry, and brought up a scan of Cheyenne Mountain, which showed the heavy concentration of lifesigns moving about the base, which zoomed out constantly as he spoke to the point that the globe of Earth was shown. "Nor has there ever been since the last Tok'ra visited the base two weeks ago."

"So how then did the Goa'uld know SG1 would be going to P6X-321, if they didn't have an infiltrator relaying intelligence via subspace?" asked Reynolds.

"They can't be doing it though subspace," disagreed Sam, "the Asgard would detect it immediately as they monitor all subspace activity around Protected Worlds."

An idea occurred to Harry at that moment and after sending a mental instruction to the AI, a specialized hand held scanner flashed into existence on the pedestal. It was like the Medical Scanner he had taught Dr Frasier to use but instead was designed to detect nano-implants and any similar technology.

"There is a technique the Alteran's developed long ago to track the movement of certain…individuals through the Gate network," he began to explain, he waved the scanner up and down in front of Jonas, who looked uncomfortable at the beeping the device was giving off, "It involved surreptitiously introducing nanites into the subject, that would immediately go dormant so as to remain undetected, but the moment the subject went through a Stargate, they would go active and relay the location and destination of the subject into subspace and go dormant again." He waved it up and down Sam and then Teal'C.

"Fascinating," said Sam, looking impressed, "and damn sneaky."

"Yes, well, the Alteran's used it to keep an eye on select individuals who they determined could pose a threat to their endeavors," said Harry, looking at the results. "Well, aside from the Naquadah in your blood there's no nanites…there goes that theory." He threw the scanner up into the air and it immediately vanished in a flash of white light.

"Perhaps not entirely," said Sam thoughtfully, "I remember reading a declassified intelligence gathering technique that the CIA used very successfully in the recent past. They would try to find a wireless access point for the computer network they wanted to penetrate, they would then hack in through the firewall, and to avoid tripping bandwidth usage alarms they would only wirelessly connect for milliseconds at a time and snapping up bits of data over a long period of time."

"You think the Goa'uld could figure out to do that?" asked Jonas.

"Baal? No way," said Harry, "now Thoth on the other hand would be clever enough. So you think the Goa'uld are doing this but instead of using wireless radio, they are using microsecond subspace bandwidth connections to…the…array in the SGC control room? Grabbing bits of mission profiles as they go, and only now did they get lucky and snatch your future time and location."

"It's plausible," said Sam with a shrug.

"If that's the case then they'd need proximity to the transmitter," said Jonas, "the signal degradation of such small bursts of data would increase the further away you are."

"Yeah," nodded Sam with a grin, "they'd have to at least be in low orbit, maybe even in geo-synchronous right over Cheyenne Mountain."

"But then they'd have to be using a Cloak," said Reynolds obviously. "We'd have to best guess where they are and saturate the area with particle cannon fire from the _Prometheus_."

"They would most certainly evade once they see _Prometheus_ approaching their general area," said Teal'C.

"We can't let them get away," said Sam. "They've had ample time to do scans of the Solar System and disposition of forces."

"Wouldn't they have relayed that already?"

"No," said Harry shaking his head, "they can only use similar small bursts of transmissions to communicate outside of Sol. They perhaps have another cloaked ship acting as a relay somewhere outside Sol, unless they're using tightbeam line of sight, but that's too problematic to arrange reliably in the long run."

"Ok, we've outlined a plausible theory, now how do we prove it?" said Sam.

"We'd need to run a very detailed analysis of prior subspace activity in the control room array," said Harry.

"How detailed?" asked Sam.

"Too detailed, I'm talking about cataloguing the individual muons in the array and its interactions with subspace itself," said Harry with a sigh, "its beyond Terran science at the moment, we'd need the Asgard's help."

And help they got. Thor was back in Sol and beamed himself into the holo-lab; after hearing their theory and summation, his only comment was, "Intriguing," and promptly beamed himself down into the SGC.

"Was that normal?" asked Jonas.

"For an Asgard, that's the closest you can get to getting one to admit that they're impressed," grinned Harry. Ten minutes passed in silence as they awaited Thor's return for word on whether their idea had merit. When the musical chime and white flash of a transporter deposited Thor immediately next to Harry everyone turned expectant eyes to the small gray being.

"It is as you surmised," said Thor with a nod of his head, and handed Harry a jewel device. He concentrated and established a link with it and in turn placed his hand on the control pedestal. A new hologram appeared showing a detailed atomic analysis of the subspace initiator within the array. "There are small periodic coherent bursts of subspace activity occurring once every standard day, which has a definite signal modulation pattern to it…I managed to even trace the location of the receiver…"

The hologram changed to show a 3D blowup of Earth and a point flashed in space directly over the SGC at an altitude of four hundred kilometers.

"So we can assume that a cloaked ship is there," said Jonas.

"At the very least a Cargo ship," said Sam.

"Ok, how about we do some counter-intel then?" asked Reynolds.

"You're suggesting we capture it without letting the Goa'uld know and use it to feed disinformation down the chain of communication?" asked Sam.

"Yeah," nodded Reynolds, "I think it's about time we started to depend less on the Tok'ra for our Intelligence Ops. I mean haven't we got the pick from CIA, MI6, FSB and MOSSAD now?"

"In theory, yes," said Harry. "But those agents who know the score are still undergoing familiarization training on the situation in the Galaxy out there. It'll be a stretch for them to do this successfully now. I recently made acquaintance with folks from the FBI Counter-Intel division, this is more up their alley."

"Now that we know where the ship is, can we beam onto it?" asked Jonas.

"We do not have sufficiently accurate coordinates for a remote transport lock," said Thor shaking his head.

"Rings," said Harry suddenly. "I can program the Rings on the _Achilles_ to automatically lock on to the nearest set in range. The subspace link formed between connected Ring sets should be sufficiently powerful to overwhelm even the distortion effect created by a Cloak. Thus getting us onto the cloaked ship."

8888888888888888888888888

Ter'ak sat stiffly at the controls of the Teltak, his jaw gritting in silent and introspective anger. How had it all come down to this? He had been a great and powerful First Prime for his army, and led it into battle in the name of Ba'al for sixteen years. He had won battle after battle, skirmish upon skirmish, and now to be reduced to be an eavesdropper on the homeworld of the Tau'ri below him…it was beyond humiliating and a stain on his honor.

There were times when he considered taking his blade to end this life. But such a death would mean that that **He'shak** had won. That coward S'mak who had engineered his defeat at the hands of Lord Yu…Baal's forces had been forced to withdraw and he had been stripped of his First Prime rank and delegated to this…duty.

He turned around in his seat and looked upon the corpse of the scientist that had accompanied him on this mission. Ter'ak had not even bothered to remember the name of the Goa'uld, but the 'god' had seen fit to constantly hint and belittle him for his defeat. After a week here Ter'ak couldn't take it anymore and had surprised the 'god' with a vicious and surprise attack to the back of the throat…driving his blade straight through so blood exploded outward and onto him…he had kept his honor and faced the 'god' as it died.

Ter'ak had learned of this technique when he had captured a member of the Rebel Jaffa. During the torture the rebel had rather impassionedly tried to get Ter'ak to defect. It hadn't worked, not enough to save the life of the rebel, but it did get Ter'ak to open his eyes somewhat…as to the true nature of the 'gods' and even how to kill them.

No Ter'ak wouldn't join the rebels, he kept his promise to serve, and he could only imagine the conditions the rebels were forced to live in, but this did not make him at all truly devout.

A chime interrupted his musings and he walked over to the console installed in the Teltak especially for this mission…he did not know how it worked…just that it penetrated the Tau'ri information system and gathered intelligence that he relayed to the cloaked Alkesh just beyond the edge of the System. The 'god' had showed him how to do it, in case he was busy during the update cycle.

Ter'ak had just finished sending the data and was walking back towards the controls when he heard the screaming hiss of the Rings activating. He grabbed his Staff from where it leaned against the wall and aimed just as the thick obsidian rings burst out of the floor…they lined up…there was a flash, they fell back into the floor revealing…nothing?

His mind raced furiously as he looked back and forth…he knew someone was there…the flash would not have been there if the Rings had activated due to malfunction. He knew that Ashrak had the ability to become invisible…but the Tau'ri…it was impossible…it was the last thing he thought as he briefly saw a flash of red energy out of the corner of his eye and then the world went dark.

Harry willed himself visible and stared curiously at the dead Goa'uld on the floor. The Jaffa, a First Prime of all things, was sprawled to one side from where his slightly overcharged Stunner had picked the Jaffa up slightly. If there was one thing Harry had learned in fighting against Jaffa was that their constitutions were formidable and standard Stun would have them awake again in ten minutes.

He walked over the custom terminal that was hacking the SGC, and glanced at the screen.

"I'm clear," he said over the radio to the group waiting in the _Achilles _Ring room.

"_How many?"_ asked Sam

"Just a Jaffa and one snake, Teal'C, I think you better come over as well, it looks like the Jaffa took out the Goa'uld for some reason."

"_Indeed._"

The Rings activated again and Sam, Jonas and Teal'C were left behind when they descended. She immediately headed over to the hacking terminal and began tapping on the controls.

"Ah, good," she said, "they've got a complete record here of everything they've managed to download." She took a TabletPC from her pack and interfaced it directly with a control crystal inside the terminal after opening it up. "Once we have that we can get our people on composing and feeding disinformation through the line."

"See if there's anything on where the final destination of the data is?" said Jonas. Sam nodded and her hands danced on the touchscreen of the Tablet. Clearly they were hoping on a lead for the search in locating Jack.

"Damn," said Sam viciously, "they've compartmentalized that. It only states that they're sending it to a cloaked Alkesh. Look at the navigational computer." Harry nodded and strode around Teal'C who was propping up the unconscious Jaffa against the bulkhead.

"Nothing here Sam," said Harry, shaking his head, "it looks like the snake was paranoid enough to delete all navigation logs."

"Okay, I've got everything I need," she said, unplugging the Tablet. "Ok, we've got 24 hours before we have to send the data burst to maintain the ruse. Teal'C, you up to carrying him?"

"I will manage, Major Carter," said Teal'C before easily hefting the large Jaffa in a fireman carry.

8888888888888888888888888888

**SGC Briefing Room 1, Earth**.

With all other options exhausted the call was put to the Tok'ra for any intelligence on where Jack might have been taken. In the meantime, Harry had to brief and arrange for the transport of the temporary Counter-Intel team that was being sent up into the Cargo ship. The group of five men, 3 from the SAS, one from Marine Force Recon, and the last from Navy Seals, all had intelligence ops in their background but was the closest thing to a Counter-Intel team that could be gathered on such short notice. The word was it would at least take another day to get an 'in-the-loop' FBI team gathered.

Finally though, after two days a Tok'ra IDC was received and a short-statured but formidable faced dark skinned Tok'ra arrived. His name was Councilor Thoran, and his presence rather surprised Harry. He was the Tok'ra's equivalent of CIA Director of Operations; in essence, he had been Harry's boss during his own years as a Tok'ra infiltrator.

"Councilor Thoran, it is good to see you," said Harry, bowing to the Tok'ra. Thoran was a being Harry respected for an ability to make the damn tough calls, which affected the life and death of the Tok'ra under his command, and for his many intelligence and sabotage coups against the Goa'uld.

"Ambassador Potter," said Thoran with a stiff nod. "Jamilla sends her regards."

"She is faring well?"

"She was wounded in the evacuation of Revana, but is now fully recovered and on duty again," said Thoran.

"That's good to hear," said Harry. "Thoran, this is Jonas Quinn, he replaced Daniel Jackson as part of SG1."

"Pleasure," nodded Jonas with a smile. Thoran bowed his head slightly in return.

"I will be briefing you, as things are a little crazy around here at the moment," said Harry dryly.

"I can somewhat imagine," said Thoran. "The pace of the Tau'ri operations against the Goa'uld is somewhat…astonishing. We estimate that you have at least twenty five teams out there, carrying out simultaneous offensives."

"Can't confirm or deny, Thoran, come now, stop probing me for reactions."

"I'm a Tok'ra, its what I do," said Thoran dryly. "And you can't blame me, we've got operatives who are in harms way because of these offensives."

"True, so what do you have on Ba'al?"

"If O'Neill is indeed captured by Ba'al, then we have a problem helping you," said Thoran stoically.

"Oh?"

"Our operative working in Baal's ranks, his host was mortally wounded while escaping with the latest intelligence, it's beyond the symbiote's capacity to heal and the Tok'ra is now in dire need of a new host," said Thoran.

"Who is it?" asked Harry curiously.

"Kanan."

"Ah, pleasant enough fellow, if a bit dramatic," he said thoughtfully. "So the long and short of it is, to get the intel we need to find O'Neill, we need to find a host on extremely short notice."

"Ummm, isn't there a list of terminally ill people…" began Jonas.

"Not enough time to organize, it would take at least a few days to get the next person on the list transferred here and organized…and that's already pushing it," said Harry shaking his head, "Jack has already been in enemy hands for going on three days, if they are torturing him the way I think they are, then we only have another two days at the most before Jack breaks."

"Then I'll do it." Harry blinked in surprise. "I mean, our time constraints being what they are…"

"Blending is not something done lightly young man," said Thoran severely, his eyes flashing.

"I can somewhat imagine that," said Jonas with a frown, "I mean, I'll be sharing every thought and memory of my mind with another being, who will do the same with me. It's not something that can be undone easily. But if it will allow us to save Colonel O'Neill and protect the interests of our shared cause…then it is something I'm willing to do."

Thoran narrowed his eyes severely at Jonas in an assessing stare. "You realize that you will in essence be under my command for the duration of your blending?"

"Oh," said Jonas, biting his lip. "Well, in that case, of course I prefer to keep working here on SG1, but there is no SG1 without the Colonel so…"

Thoran raised an eyebrow and smirked at Harry. "It doesn't matter, Kanan deserves a chance to rest somewhat from his duties. A change in pace is in order I think. I also think it long overdue that the Tok'ra have an active liaison here."

"Jonas…are you sure about this?" The Kelownan nodded resolutely. "Very well, I'll get Hammond to bump it up to the STO on the liaison issue. But he can approve your blending himself, as this is an emergency situation."

8888888888888888888888

The process of convincing Hammond, Thoran going back to get Kanan and bring him back in a portable stasis pod took another few precious hours. The blending was rather anti-climatic when it happened. They had gone down into the sterile Infirmary, and Thoran had unsealed the stasis pod and simply directed Jonas to dunk his face into the ionizing solution within the pod that kept the snake-like Tok'ra alive and open his mouth.

Jonas took a deep fortifying breath and did as instructed. Kanan must have sensed the opening and immediately the Tok'ra leapt into Jonas' mouth with great speed, enough to send the Kelownan reeling backwards and briefly gasping and gurgling as the symbiote made its way through his body. Harry caught Jonas before he could crash against a nearby bed and the Kelownan's body shuddered for a brief moment.

"Jonas? Can you hear me? Kanan?" said Harry.

The young man blinked, his eyes crossing and then managed to straighten himself.

"I'm here," said Jonas, spitting some blood into a sterile cup, and wiping his face. "Wow, this is weird…oh yeah…" The Kelownan's head bowed and when it came back up his eyes flashed. "Thoran?" said Kanan in the distorted voice of a symbiote openly speaking.

"I'm here my friend," said Thoran.

"Ah good," said Kanan, who chuckled heartily, "giving me a new assignment are you?"

"It might only be temporary," said Thoran.

"Ah, nonsense," said Kanan with a thin smile, "I've heard much of the Tau'ri, and being with them in action is just too good an opportunity to miss. I can tell from Jonas that I will experience interesting times in the future. Not to mention he is an excellent host…oh my, his memory recall is simply amazing…fascinating."

"Don't get carried away Kanan," said Harry with a chuckle. "You know our situation?"

"I do indeed," said Kanan, folding his hands in front of him, "if Colonel O'Neill is indeed being held by Ba'al, then he is most likely being held and interrogated at a facility that the System Lord has been keeping a close secret from the others."

"Indeed?" asked Harry.

"Yes," said Kanan, "let's proceed to the Briefing room and I can elucidate."

888888888888888888888888

Kanan typed in the six-symbol gate address into the Briefing room computer and immediately the wallscreen showing the map of the Galaxy zoomed in to highlight the location of the planet in question.

"Here," said Kanan, pointing. "This world houses a research facility, where Ba'al and his underlings are doing research on developing new weapons and gravity fields."

"The Goa'uld already possess artificial gravity," pointed out Harry.

"Yes, but Ba'al is experimenting with increasing the degree of the gravity field by many times and project that accurately from a Ha'tak, such a field could theoretically have many military applications; from distorting subspace emissions to easily capturing ships."

"Damn," sighed Harry. "What defenses does it have?"

"It's a veritable fortress," said Kanan, shaking his head. "A ground assault via Stargate is out of the question. However…because of the fact that he has to keep it hidden from the System Lords, it means that Ba'al cannot afford to station a Ha'tak there. It does have ground-to-space weaponry…but I believe a Tau'ri Destroyer, if my hosts' memories are accurate, would have more than enough firepower to take on those defenses. All that would be required for O'Neill to escape, if he is in condition to do it, is for you to disrupt the power systems…the holding cells in the base tilts the gravity inside the cell, so that, from the occupants point of view, they are standing in a pit…"

"A disruption in power would disable that," nodded Harry. "And O'Neill should still have a subspace implant in him…that would allow for a remote beam out once the base's shields are down."

"How obtrusive is this implant?" asked Thoran.

"It's inactive unless I send a specific coded recognition signal, it's about the size of a very small insect."

"Then it should still be there," said Kanan.

"Well, thank you, Kanan," said Harry, "I better get this to Hammond, I look forward to work with you."

Kanan bowed his head and abruptly Jonas reemerged, "Wow, what a headrush."

"You'll get used to it," said Harry patting the Kelownan on the shoulder and heading towards the General's office.

**TSS Prometheus**

"Twenty seconds to reversion," reported the Helm Officer.

"Very well," nodded Ronson, "Weapons officer, bring all Particle weapons online, and charge the main cannon."

"Yes, sir."

"Science, begin your scans on the frequency the Ambassador gave us, as soon you get a lock get O'Neill out of there."

"Reversion to real space in five…four…three…two…one…"

The four hundred and fifty meter delta shaped vessel darted out of the Hyperspace window, which abruptly closed behind it. It engaged its sublight pulse drives to maximum military thrust towards the upper hemisphere of the planet. _Prometheus_ now maneuvered to point her sharp bow directly towards her target; a collection of seven clustered together pyramids that was hidden in a valley of a large mountain range. The shields over the facility were normally set to Cloak it, but even if they had managed to get it online, thanks to Kanan, _Prometheus_ had all the co-ordinates it needed for a targeting solution, they could even target Ba'al's bathroom if they were so inclined.

All energy from the ship's secondary fusion core was now funneled into the buffers for the main cannon, and when it reached the desired charge, a thick blue line of particle energy burst from the main forward collector and reached down towards the planet.

It smashed upon the shield and flared it into the visible spectrum…at first the shield held firm, but now a critical design flaw in Goa'uld shield technology was exploited by Earth for the first time; the shield would hold indefinitely against a brief sphere or bolt of energy flung against it…it would lose strength but would recharge in the time it took the next bolt to reach it. But now it was not being given that chance at all…the beam continued to pound into the shield and it was losing strength on a continuous basis.

"How long until capacitors run dry?" asked Ronson.

"Ten seconds," reported the Weapons Officer.

"Shield strength?"

"Approaching forty percent, and falling…"

When particle beam ran its course, the secondary reactor now funneled its energy to the banks of Particle Beam Cannons.

"Fire all forward PBCs."

Now smaller and more intermittent beams lashed out in long lines towards the weapons facility, but now the element of surprise was gone and counter-fire was being shot up into space. Thick bolts of plasma bashed against the shields of the _Prometheus._

"How long will we hold against that?" asked Ronson, as his ship started to vibrate with each hit absorbed.

"That first salvo dropped our shields to ninety percent, at current rate, two minutes, Sir."

"Keep PBCs firing, enemy shield status?"

"Down to twenty percent, I'm beginning to get sensor penetration of the facility and reading internal damage."

"Science, do you have O'Neill?"

"I had a brief signal but it seems to be moving, looks like he is out of the cell."

"Then we've at least given him a fighting chance, should we have to retreat," declared Ronson.

Blue beams continued to stab into the planet below and orange bolts flung back up, until finally the facility's shields collapsed. Ronson had planned for this moment and didn't hesitate.

"Get O'Neill, initiate Fire Program Alpha."

"Initiating transport," said the Science officer. "He's in Sickbay, sir…plus one extra that he was holding onto when transport occurred."

"Alert Security until we can clarify the situation."

"Alpha commencing," reported the Weapons Officer.

The PBCs each received a specific target to destroy in the facility…most especially important were the labs where the gravity generators and weapons prototypes were being developed. The blue beams lanced down with renewed vigor and pummeled into the unprotected facility…and exactly what Ronson and his command staff had hoped and planned for occurred.

A massive flash visible from space announced that the destruction of the gravity generators had cascaded through the power distribution and directly into the other systems of the base.

"Scratch one weapons facility," said the Weapons Officer with a satisfied grin.

"Well done, everyone," said Ronson. "Helm, get us on a course for Earth, as soon as possible. CIC to Sickbay, what's O'Neill's status?"

"_He'z in good condition on ze survaze sir_," reported the Major Doctor from Germany who was in charge of Ronson's sickbay. "_But his cloze tell a different ztory. Hiz mozt likely bveen in sarcophagus afzer eech torture session. Ze woman with him iz human…also a prizoner I guess from her condition. "_

"Damn," murmured Ronson, knowing the long-term effects of that. "Keep them both in full isolation and decon procedures, until we're certain the Goa'uld didn't leave anything nasty in them gift-wrapped for us."

"_Yez, Colonel._"

**SGC Infirmary, Earth.**

Harry glanced at the sleeping form of Jack as medical personnel bustled around him and other patients in the ward.

"Dr Frasier says he will probably suffer from withdrawal symptoms from so much time in a sarcophagus, but otherwise she expects a full recovery," said a much-relieved Sam as she smiled at Jack.

"It's amazing that he rescued Shallan as well," said Jonas, his head lowering and shoulders shaking with emotion, "Kanan had believed Ba'al had simply killed her for betrayal."

"So Shallan, Ba'al's Lotar, is how Kanan accessed all the intel he gathered on the weapons facility?" asked Harry.

"Yes," nodded Jonas, wiping away a tear. "He initially seduced her for that purpose, but falling in love was hardly my…I mean…his plan. It just…happened."

"What will you do now, with regards to her?" asked Sam.

"She's decided to stay with Tok'ra and eventually blend with a symbiote when one becomes available," said Jonas. "And I'll ask for leave every few weeks or so to see her."

"Hey…I'm trying to sleep here," said Jack weakly.

"Sorry, sir…glad to see you're okay."

"You…" he pointed at Jonas, "actually agreed to let them stick a snake in you…to save me?"

"Umm, yeah," said Jonas uncomfortably, aware of Jack's feelings about the Tok'ra.

"…Thanks, and tell the snake 'Thanks a million'," said Jack with a wry grin.

"Kanan says 'You're welcome'," said Jonas with a smile. "And thank you for saving Shallan, from both of us."

"Pffft, no biggie," said Jack, waving his hands. "No get out of here…wanna sleep…" he fell back on his pillow and closed his eyes.

Harry pulled Jonas aside as they left the Infirmary. "I just wanted to let you know, that the Magnetic Ribbon computer banks and the SA-1 S.A.M.s systems will be ready for delivery to Kelowna by tomorrow."

Jonas left out a heavy sigh of relief, "That's amazing…thank you, Ambassador. On behalf of my people…"

"Don't thank me yet," said Harry, raising a cautionary hand. "The STO is sending along an observer with the military techs who will brief your people on the operation of the systems. As long as Kelowna continues to play ball, there'll be no problems. Unofficially, I can say that the STO does not like the idea of Kelowna being forced to detonate a Naquadria bomb…if a passing Goa'uld ship picks up on it…then the secret of Naquadria it out of the bag, so to speak. And both Earth and Kelowna has a vested interest in maintaining that status quo."

"I understand," nodded Jonas. "These missile systems will go a long way to keeping the balance of power in the skies on my planet."

"I just hope your country understands that weapons are like money; no one knows the meaning of enough," said Harry solemnly. "It's also something that is unfortunately universal, even the Ancients fell prey to this."

"A sobering thought."

"Indeed."

_A/N: Harry is quoting 'Martin Amis'. Ie. The Alterans created the Asurans to fight the Wraith but lost control of them. I would imagine there are many examples in the Ancient's incredibly long history of weapons development going out of control. Atlantis fans…be assured that it will come into play soon…I've already put the first links in the chain of events for that to occur. Jonas is a Tok'ra now…I didn't like how they reduced him from being a major character for an entire season to a tertiary character that only reappeared in one episode in Season7 and was never heard from again. This is my attempt to keep him in the game. _


	31. Chapter 31

_**Chapter Thirty-One – The Cure**_

**Seaworld **

He leaned against the doorframe of the main hut over the lagoon and watched the scene in front of him in silence and contentment. It was a scene he was firmly fixing in his memory as one of the happy ones. The twins were babbling and giggling in Alteran as they played with a distinctly harassed looking Aiyana who still had a smile on her face. Alexandra and Jason could now walk for short periods of time and were making the most of their newly discovered dexterity in their legs. The floor was littered with all a manner of toys; most of which had some or other educational context to them; Alteran numbers and mathematical constants were prominent on them…and while the twins couldn't hope to understand them yet…the idea of building the basis for future learning by constant exposure was there.

Their mother was also raising the twins in the Spartan traditions and as such they had yet to wear a stitch of clothing in their young lives, it was an unnecessary encumbrance and chore to do otherwise and its not like the twins were complaining. Aiyana's slowly returning memories prevented her from joining in this minimalist attitude, as the Alteran's of five million years ago had a rather firm attachment to their ornate tunics and robes. She clearly saw the advantage of foregoing clothing in the damp environment of the islands, but it was a deep habit to break but Apollonia was already working on it.

Aiyana was today clad in short pants and a piece of cloth tied around her breasts both made with material that breathed easily. Her skin was already looking a more healthy tan brown from her time outside.

"_Saluto_," said Harry in greeting.

"_Patris_!" said the twins in perfect unison and alternately crawled and walked as fast as they could towards their father. He scooped both up easily in his arms and they hugged him tightly.

"Have you been good?" he continued in Alteran. The twins bobbed their heads in excited yes. "Not tiring out your Aunty Aiyana?" They shook their heads this time. He merely raised a skeptical eyebrow at both infant Alterans, their shared feelings speaking to each other.

"Liars," teased Aiyana, standing up with a smile. The twins pouted.

"How have you been?" asked Harry pointedly, staring at Aiyana.

"Getting there," she answered with a sigh. "I can use my normal voice fully now, I can remember the highlights of my life before the hibernation, but the specifics and minutiae are still lost in the fog."

"And?"

"Well, towards the end almost all of us were devoted to finding a way to cure the plague, but before it struck us, I was a _molior edificium_. It's a discipline that blends architect and structural engineer."

"Fascinating," said Harry thoughtfully. "Military training?"

"The basics as were required for all Alterans of the time," she replied, "if I had to I could easily pilot the _Achilles_, but with none of the finesse or military skill you would, nor with your grasp of strategy."

"Then it seems we have the subject of your first lessons," said Harry with a happy grin, tickling the nose of Alexandra who giggled and tried to swat her father's hand away.

"Lessons?"

"Yeah, as much as I would wish that it wasn't necessary, it's been over a month since you've came here," said Harry seriously. "And the Galaxy needs you, just as much as it needs me and Apollonia. With Anubis somehow in possession of an unknown amount of Alteran technology, we need to be ready to counter whatever he springs on Terra, our allies, and us. Not to mention the Asgard's genetic problem that we also have to endeavor a solution for…"

"Yes, yes," said Aiyana, "I understand, it's just so easy to fall into the lull of peace here…it's entrancing."

"That it is," agreed Harry. "I look forward to the day the Galaxy is not in the grip of a feudal war, but until then we cannot rest."

"So when do we begin?" asked Aiyana.

"As soon as possible, but first, I must drop these rugrats off with Heimdoll, as their mother is very busy studying artificial subspace region building."

"Oh," said Aiyana wincing, "now that is complex work, you sure she's up to it?"

"Our Legacy is instructing her, I am confident she will be fine," said Harry stridently. "Of course, if she makes a mistake, we won't even have the time to feel the effects as the entire solar system will be destroyed in a few nanoseconds. But I have faith in her."

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Half an hour later Harry and Aiyana stood on a gantry overlooking the massive underground shipyards of Seaworld. She was absolutely gob smacked at the sight in front of her, hardly believing her eyes. The ship berthed below was seven hundred meters in length, one hundred and fifty in width, made up of the block and narrowing contours of various main sections and decks, which tapered towards the large engine emitters in the rear. She was unfamiliar with the class of vessel, but the design was pure Alteran…taking into account functionality and mathematical design principles as well as a touch of the aesthetic.

"Say hello to the _Artemis_," said Harry, gesturing grandly at the ship below. "Her official Alteran class designation is Hippoforalkus. She was one of the few ships that actually made it back from wherever the Alterans went five million years ago, so she's just about ten thousand odd years old."

"That's a bit old for a ship to be spaceworthy," commented Aiyana.

"True, but she's been practically re-built from scratch…everything about her is new, in terms of design I kept the original elements, but the technology in her is up to date. She actually surpasses the Asgard _O'Neill_ class in some respects, because of her Drone launcher tubes. Main energy weapon is the new Asgard zero-point exotic particle emitter, but it's released in a tight beam instead of a sphere of energy as on the _O'Neill_ class."

"What's she powered by?" asked Aiyana curiously.

"She has the last of our Zero-Point Energy Modules for power, with a neutrino-ion reactor as backup," explained Harry. "_Achilles_ and _Briseus_ each also have one, although they have more room and have three neutrino-ion reactors each."

"Ah, hence the reason your wife is studying their manufacture," she said.

"Yes, I have the feeling they'll be needed soon," said Harry with narrowed eyes. "Anyway, let's go to the Bridge." Both Alterans vanished with a flash of white light and reappeared on the Bridge of the _Artemis_. It still had the semi-circular configuration with massive forward viewport to space of the original Hippoforalkus class, and control stations for ship systems dotted about, but instead of the raised Captain's chair, an ornate marble Control Chair now dominated the center of the Bridge. "What do you think?"

Aiyana slowly walked around the Bridge taking it all in and traced her hand over the smooth marble of the Chair.

"It's…" she gave up on words and merely placed a hand on Harry's shoulder, sharing her feelings and spirit that expressed what words failed to convey.

"And she's all yours now," said Harry with a grin.

"Amazing," she said, shaking her head as if she had trouble believing it. "Well, let's get cracking on those lessons, I don't want to lose her the first time she sees action, due to my…lack of education in matters of war."

There was a flash of white light and they disappeared.

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**SGC Stargate Control, Earth**

"What's going on?" asked Harry. He had returned after spending a few days with his children and making sure Aiyana was set on her studies, only to find upon returning that the SGC was in a rather heightened state of alert.

"The Tok'ra base in Risa has been overrun by Anubis," said Jonas grimly. "I was returning with SG2 at the time from the archeological dig on P36-231. The evacuees were forced to divert to the Alpha site."

"Risa has fallen?" said Harry incredulously. "That was one of the most secure and secret Tok'ra facilities in the Galaxy. How did Anubis…"

"I know," said Jonas wearily, "even Kanan is scratching his head in confusion on how Anubis knew."

"And now a group of Tok'ra are in a very confined space with a large portion of the Rebel Jaffa," said Harry wearily, "talk about recipe for disaster."

"It is much worse," said Kanan suddenly, his distorting voice echoing eerily, "an Ashrak hunter with the ability to render itself invisible has apparently managed to infiltrate the Alpha site with the evacuees. Gate travel has been restricted until the Ashrak is found and destroyed."

"An Ashrak is a formidable foe," agreed Harry. He had only tangled once with an Ashrak, in the days before he had introduced himself to the SGC. It was a sobering experience that no matter what his own powers; training and the will to fight, in the end of the day, won out over anything. Yes, he had defeated the Ashrak in the end, but he had gotten overconfident and nearly been wounded mortally and had to drag himself for a mile back to the Stargate to get back to Seaworld and get medical attention.

"But I think Sam's multispectral vision will negate any personal cloaking device the Ashrak is wearing…if she can manage to shift her vision into the proper frequency she can see it, but she's still having trouble with her control." Kanan only nodded. "You've been pretty accepting and quiet on the Terran evolution…I would've thought you'd be eager to report this to the Tok'ra High Council."

"I dare not," said Kanan. "Until it is determined how Anubis is penetrating our security with apparent ease, it's a secret that will go with me into death."

"Unless the whistle is blown at the Alpha site in dealing with the Ashrak," said Harry worriedly.

"I believe Major Carter is aware of the security issues, she is quite diligent," said Kanan. "And your most ingenious Advanced Warfighter systems could be used as an excuse."

"Sometimes I miss having the deviousness of a Tok'ra whispering in my head," chuckled Harry in appreciation.

The day grinded on anxiously, with Harry and Jonas/Kanan spending it in Daniel's Lab cataloguing the artifacts gathered, all the while keeping a sharp ear for the klaxon that would signify an incoming wormhole. When it did finally occur, it was evening and Jonas fumbled the piece of pottery in his hand…Harry caught it in a telekinetic grip before it could shatter on the concrete floor.

"Thanks," said Jonas sheepishly, plucking the piece out of the air and setting it carefully on the table.

"You might have the strength and perks of Tok'ra now, Jonas, but you can still have pratfalls," said Harry amusedly.

"I gather that," laughed the Kelownan. When they arrived in the Gate room the wormhole had in the meantime disengaged again and Sam, Jack and Teal'C were handing their PR8 AW systems off to the quartermaster sergeants.

"Hey guys," greeted Harry easily, "did you kick some Ashrak ass?"

"Yeah," said Jack, "the guy may be invisible, but he still makes noise as he goes." He tapped his ears.

"I could eventually see him," said Sam with a sigh, "but I was struggling to get my eyes to the correct frequency…eventually I used the Naquadah generator to generate an electromagnetic field that would excite the cloak into the visible spectrum. And the irony, just when the Ashrak was made 'visible' by the field, I manage to get my eyes in gear…" she shook her head in frustration.

"Hmmm, perhaps that is the key then to get your ability under proper control," said Harry thoughtfully.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, everyone is different, learn in different ways, there's no sure way to go about teaching control of the metaphysical," explained Harry. "With you I believe your ability may be…for the moment…operating on emotional triggers."

"That makes kinda sense actually," she said looking intrigued.

"Ok, but no training tonight," said Jack sternly, "we've got the mission to Pangar tomorrow morning, I want everyone fresh and bright. You too, Ambassador, you're coming to smooth relations."

"Looking forward to it," said Harry dryly as SG1 walked off to the Infirmary.

**Pangar**

On a lush green hillside, with the rest of the surrounding landscape sloping with grassland and the occasional tree dotted about and slightly overcast condition above, many people dressed rather conservatively with little color adorning their clothes worked on excavating ruins of a large structure buried in the hillside. Many tents also had placed to allow the archeologists to remain on site and to store the equipment used in the excavating.

The archeologists and scientists all kept staring occasionally down a well traveled footpath towards where the large obsidian metal ring was erected, and the four people standing at the control device near it, who were apparently waiting for something.

Of the four, it was accurate to say, only three were waiting, whilst the fourth, in the black uniform and manner that screamed 'military', was relentlessly and worriedly pacing back and forth.

"Calm yourself, Commander," said Councilor Dorren, the most official looking of the group, with a dark gray suit with coat tails and very calm and stern demeanor.

"We are about to meet an alien race in person for the first time," said Commander Tegar, walking to stand beside the Councilor, "if you are correct, they are far in advance of us and capable of being a significant threat. That gives me good reason to be on highest alert."

Dorren looked like he was used to the paranoid posturing of the military and merely said, "Since the discovery of the temple ruins, we have had reason to believe that there are other inhabited planets in the galaxy and now finally, we have our proof. I, for one, am relieved that the very first contact that we have made is with a race of humans that seem to be very much like us."

"Maybe you treat them without suspicion, but I cannot," said Tergar insistently.

"Nevertheless Commander, we must proceed."

It was at this point that the Stargate rumbled to life and the lights on the great device began to go on, one by one, rather quickly before a wormhole connected and the rumbling water that appeared out of nowhere settled to a smooth pond effect within the great circle.

"They are sending their most respected team of representatives. No doubt, the leader of this group will be a brilliant and savvy negotiator," said Dorren.

"We must be at our best to meet the challenge," said Tegar.

"Personally, I cannot wait to meet a man of such genius."

Through the water stepped Harry clad in his Alteran robes for the occasion and with his hands folded into the sleeves. He walked down the steps and halted, and Sam, Jack, Teal'C and Jonas appeared through the Gate. They were not clad in full PR8 gear as this was a diplomatic mission, but they did have PR7s in their kit bags and dressed in green BDU and tac vests.

"Greetings," bowed Harry to Councilor Dorren, "I am Ambassador Potter of Terra. I bring you greetings on behalf of the people of Terra as well, and hope that mutually beneficial relations will continue well into the foreseeable future between our peoples."

"Ambassador," nodded Dorren and bowed as well, "it's an amazing honor and pivotal moment to meet you and your people."

"It is an honor to meet you as well," said Harry with a kind smile on his face, "allow me to introduce SG1 to you, our primary exploration team. In command is Colonel O'Neill, with Major Carter being second in command, she is also a highly able scientist, next we have Teal'C, our expert on the Goa'uld and Jonas Quinn our field archeologist."

"A pleasure to meet you all as well," said Dorren. "We shall proceed the with the talks in the city, please follow."

The capital city of Pangar was strange eclectic mix of the early sixties on Earth minus the bright colors; only it seemed these people had taken to a rather eager fascination with dirigible airships and used them for multiple purposes. Clearly they had avoided the early obstacle of using flammable gases to provide lift, and after a brief conversation with Dorren on the subject he gathered that they hadn't had a Hindenburg disaster or something equivalent in their history to make the form of transport unpopular as had happened on Earth.

The interior design of the government building they entered was another surprise, a very elegant minimalist Japanese interior, complete with low tables, paper walls, and thin sliding doors. The room was proportioned according to Feng Shui principles even.

"Nice," said Jack in appreciation.

"Thank you, Colonel. We would be happy to take you on a full tour of our city, but first, we would like to spend a little time talking about our mutual interests. So, please, please, sit," said Dorren.

Harry sat in the center of one side of the table, while SG1 flanked him on either side, Dorren and Tegar sat opposite them and both easily settled into the cross-legged position. It was amusing to see Jack wincing with his chronically bad knee as tried to imitate but gave up and sat sideways.

"To be honest," began Dorren, "we are still trying to adjust to the fact that our…Stargate, as you call it…is no longer a mere relic of a bygone era."

"Obviously, it was quite a shock when your communication machine appeared last month," said Commander Tegar.

"First Contact is a delicate and unnerving thing," agreed Harry.

"Well, we are all very pleased to finally get the chance to talk face to face," said Dorren with an expression to match it.

"From our study of the ancient temple, we have been able to deduce the Stargate was an interplanetary transportation device…" began Tegar.

"…but we haven't determined how to make a connection with the many worlds described in the writings in the temple."

"It took us a while to get the hang of it too," said Sam.

"We know that the symbols on the Stargate itself are the key, but as for the number and sequence to enter in the dialing device..." said Dorren pointedly.

"Yes," nodded Harry, "we can help with regards to making your Stargate fully functional. But we must learn about you as a people first, before we can in good conscience give you to the ability to travel around the Galaxy. Please…" he said, raising a hand to stop Tergan, who looked like he was about to explode into a diatribe… "I do this as much for your own safety as for ours. Do not misinterpret it as being selfish. The Galaxy is a wonderful and yet terribly dangerous place."

"Oh, yes, well, of course. We intend to allow you full access to our citizens, our history, our culture, so that you may come to trust us."

"We fully intend to reciprocate," said Harry mild smile.

"We also want to make it clear that we intend to offer all that we can in trade for any knowledge or technology that you are willing to share," said Dorren and gestured to an aide standing near the door. The aide came forward and placed a small glass bottle that contained a dark purple almost luminescent substance. Jack, unable to repress his curiosity picked it up and looked at it closely.

"And what is this?" asked Harry.

"We call it Tretonin, Ambassador," said Dorren, "its our greatest scientific discovery."

"How so?" asked Sam, her curiosity piqued.

"From what you have told me about your world, your people suffer from a myriad of illnesses. Many of them are untreatable. Tretonin makes our immune systems impervious to any ailment. We live in perfect health."

"Indeed," said Harry, his eyebrows rising at the bold claim, but the brief surface thoughts and emotions of Dorren as he spoke about Tretonin were…worrying. He only had a vague idea, but had managed to gleam that somehow the Goa'uld and Tretonin were linked and that Dorren was very worried, even desperate. "Jonas, Teal'C, perhaps you should go and begin the cultural exchange, with your permission, Councilor?"

"Certainly," said Dorren and gestured to the aide, who led Teal'C and Jonas out of the room.

"Are there any side-effects to Tritonin?" asked Harry immediately.

"It does have some," admitted Dorren, "the good it can do, far outweighs any negative aspects." The conflicting emotions Harry sensed said otherwise.

"What kind of side effects are we talking about, exactly?" said Sam; clearly she also saw a sugarcoating going on.

"It depends on the individual, most people experience almost no reaction to it," said Tegar stoically, "those who do merely require more regulated doses."

"We will need a decent amount for testing on Terra," said Sam reasonably.

"Yes, certainly," said Dorren.

"Of course, we will need something in return from you, as a measure of good faith," said Tegar, clearly not the trusting type…which wasn't necessarily bad.

"I've been authorized," said Harry and Sam handed him a file from her pack, which he in turn placed on the table, "to give you these ten working Stargate addresses. These are all peaceful planets, safe from hostile forces, rich in historical relics and natural resources."

"Well," said Dorren, opening the file and glancing at it, "this is a very generous offer, Ambassador, very generous. However, based on our own studies of the writings in the temple, we have compiled a list of the names of the worlds that we would like to visit." He handed Harry a large elegantly hand written thin book and opened it to show the names of the planets written in a very old dialect of Goa'uld. It took him a moment to study and then he handed it off to Sam to look at.

"Three of those worlds mentioned are current Goa'uld homeworlds," said Harry raising an eyebrow at Dorren, "they are extremely dangerous to visit and are heavily fortified. You do not wish to make any of those your first off-world journey."

"Those are the worlds we wish to explore," insisted Tegar.

"We believe they are significant to our history," qualified Councilor Dorren.

"Again, I will strongly urge you to reconsider, unless you wish for major casualties amongst any team that you send," said Harry mildly.

"If you have been to these worlds and survived, can we not?"

"You may survive," admitted Harry, "but going to those worlds are not done lightly or without grave consequences. You may, once again attract the attention of the Goa'uld, and that is something you do not want or can ill afford."

"We are aware of the risks and believe the rewards are worth the potential consequences, as you and your people obviously do, Ambassador."

"Please, Ambassador, in exchange for the Tretonin, we are simply asking that you respect our wishes," implored Dorran.

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The talks didn't go much further beyond that and they recessed until Dr Frasier could validate the value of the Tretonin. To that end, Sam and Jack returned to the SGC with the sample in hand, while Teal'C and Jonas introduced Harry to Zenna Valk, a blonde curly haired rather attractive woman who was the head of the temple excavation project. She departed a few minutes later saying there was much work to be done and headed back to the ruins. Teal'C then led them to the Stargate to speak in relative privacy, just in case, Harry willed an invisible Silence Barrier into existence around them.

"Ok, Teal'C, what's the matter?"

"Zanna Valk was most eager on the subject of the Goa'uld," observed the big Jaffa, "she also confessed to us that there was something we needed to know about the Tretonin."

"She was also worried about the security forces around the dig, wouldn't speak in front of them," said Jonas looking around nervously, "she looked like she was going way out on a limb just speaking to us about more than Goa'uld hieroglyphs."

"I have also sensed something from Councilor Dorren about the Tretonin," said Harry thoughtfully. "In his mind he associates Tretonin in some way with the Goa'uld…the thought was too fleeting for me to pick it up properly…but it was also obscured by Dorren's…desperate emotional state."

"Desperate? What would they have to be desperate about?" asked Jonas.

"I don't know," said Harry with a shrug, "they also want addresses to Goa'uld homeworlds for some reason. They didn't think much of the list we gifted them."

"That is worrying," said Jonas, "Kanan thinks there is a…snake…in the grass, so to speak."

"All right," said Harry, "keep investigating it, see what you can find. I can't help, as an Ambassador isn't exactly supposed to be breaking the laws of a foreign power. Just be careful."

Both men nodded and headed back towards the ruins…while Harry went to the DHD and gated back to Earth.

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When Sam, Jack and Harry returned the next morning, Pangar time, it was to be greeted with a security detail and a rather damp Teal'C and Jonas, who told of their nighttime adventure to determine the mystery of Tretonin origins and how it was related to the Goa'uld. Harry blinked in astonishment at the news that at the Tretonin production facility that Teal'C and Jonas had infiltrated, there was entire pool full of Goa'uld symbiotes. In the process one of the facility's guards had been infected with a symbiote during the brief scuffle when Jonas fell into the pool while wrestling with the guy.

"Typical," muttered Jack.

When they arrived back in the government conference room, it was of course, time to explain.

"Would you care to tell us what you were doing at the Tretonin facility?" demanded Tegar. Harry had no intention of playing with a velvet glove now; it was the iron fist's turn to be revealed.

"Would you wish to explain why you are raising a pool full of Goa'uld symbiotes?" demanded Harry strongly in turn. "Terra and a coalition of other races are at war with the Goa'uld, do you see how this looks from our perspective?"

"You have betrayed our openness with you," countered Dorren with a frown.

"Openness?" said Harry in astonishment. "You're breeding Goa'uld symbiotes! When were you going to tell us that?"

"The symbiotes are a critical component to making Tretonin," explained Dorren, seeing that he losing the argument somewhat.

"Excuse me?" said Sam archly.

"It is a complicated process, one which is better explained by our scientists. Quite frankly, we intended to tell you how the Tretonin was made, eventually. We just wanted to first assess how you might react."

"Not well," said Jack dryly.

"I don't know why you're taking such offense. You've told us yourselves, the Goa'uld are mortal enemies who have enslaved countless humans. Where is the harm in using them to enhance our quality of life?" said Tegar.

"Do you really understand the risks involved?" asked Jonas grimly.

"We have been using the same method to produce Tretonin for nearly 30 years. We take every precaution possible to protect our people," insisted Dorren.

"How were these symbiotes obtained if you hadn't mastered Gate travel yet?" asked Harry pointedly. "We require an answer before we can move forward in any form of trade or relations."

"We have already told you everything that is necessary," said Tegan dismissively.

"Tegar, the Ambassador is right, there is no reason to keep more secrets," said Dorren solemnly.

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They were escorted to the same Tretonin Facility that had been infiltrated the night before. It was a large rectangular building made out of reinforced concrete and had what looked like massively increased security since SG1's little foray. The inner hallways were the same minimalist with the only color being the doors and the lines painted on the walls to help people navigate the maze like corridors. Harry and SG1 were walking down one of these corridors being led by Councilor Dorren.

"The drug was developed and is now manufactured and administered here...and since it's use has spread to more of the general population, we've implemented other treatment centers throughout Pangar as well. Now, through here is the reason we were able to create Tretonin in the first place. The symbiotes were not procured through Gate travel." He led them to a door and opened it. "Our symbiotes are all bred in captivity."

Harry was stunned. There in the middle of the room, which was clearly some form of lab, was a large glass tank and within the ionized water was a slowly undulating Goa'uld symbiote and growing from it was a large womb like sac almost a foot and a half in length…it was a Goa'uld Queen.

"A queen," said Teal'C.

"No kidding," said Jack dryly, who was clearly remembering his rather embarrassing encounters with the Goa'uld Queen Hathor six years ago, who had the ability to enchant any male with her pheromones.

They were then taken to an adjoining Infirmary in the facility to see the guard who had fallen victim to one of the symbiotes when he had fallen in the pool. The man was strapped down onto his bed, they had to be content however to merely observe the man through a window though.

"Is there nothing you can do to help him, Ambassador?"

"We have the ability to remove the symbiote safely," said Harry and studied the catatonic looking man intently through the glass. "But I'm curious as to why he is not coming around, that is not normal. What are the particulars of his condition?"

"Well, his lower brain functions are intact," said Dorren, looking relieved, "his breathing and heart rate are normal, but he is unresponsive to any stimulus."

"That doesn't make sense," said Sam.

"Teal'C?" prompted Jack for the big Jaffa's opinion.

"Prior to the process of incubating Goa'uld symbiotes using Jaffa, the blending between Goa'uld and host had only a one-in-two chance of success. The Jaffa were created for the very reason of improving the ability of the symbiote to take human hosts."

"So the fact that this symbiote was raised in a tank could explain the coma-like state?" posited Sam.

"To the best of my knowledge a failed blending results in death to both Goa'uld and host, this man is very much alive," said Teal'C.

"Our understanding is that this is the typical reaction to contact with Goa'uld offspring," said Dorren in confusion.

"A Goa'uld offspring is born with the intellect and knowledge of the queen who bore it. Normally, the fully developed personality would emerge, allowing the symbiote to control the host immediately upon blending," explained Teal'C.

"Glowing eyes, cliché behaviour, evilness, that kind of thing," said Jack helpfully.

"This one's more of a blank slate," said Sam.

"Is it possible the production and raising process has somehow hindered the development of the symbiote?" asked Dorran.

"No," said Harry thoughtfully, "I think we are forgetting the Queen herself. Her abilities with regards to her own offspring are considerable. A Queen can essentially genetically engineer her own young; if she so chooses she can make them the blank slates that these symbiotes appear to be. She can consciously withhold passing on her knowledge."

"Why would the Queen do this?" asked Dorren.

"Hmmm, that is a good question, we would need a second opinion, I think," said Harry, "but first, since you have been so forthcoming, I think it time to introduce you to one of Terra's allies in the fight against the Goa'uld. Jonas?"

The Kelownan looked conflicted for a moment but then seemingly nodded to no one, and dipped his head, when he raised it his eyes flashed and Kanan spoke openly. "Greetings, Councilor Dorran, I am Kanan of the Tok'ra."

Dorran looked astonished, "you are a symbiote within Jonas?"

"That is correct," said Kanan. "The Tok'ra are a subspecies that have branched off from the Goa'uld long ago, we fight them along with the Terrans and other allied races. The Tok'ra do not take hosts by force nor enslave humans, we live in a truly symbiotic existence with the host and share consciousness, thought and emotion equally."

"Ambassador," said Kanan turning to Harry, "I believe it would be beneficial to examine the Queen again and for a cellular scan to be done."

"Can I have your permission to examine the Queen in such a fashion?" asked Harry.

"Of course, as long as she is left relatively undisturbed."

Councilor Dorran left on other government business but allowed them to walk freely in the complex. They returned to the lab where the Queen was being held and Harry pulled out his hand held Alteran scanner from a deep pocket in his robes and it beeped as its rudimentary computer obeyed his mental commands.

"Not a pretty sight," winced Jack.

"What do you detect, Ambassador?" asked Kanan.

"Still processing," said Harry, "this is not the fastest of devices considering its size and complexity of the scan required."

"It doesn't bother you that the Pangarans are using a Goa'uld like this?" asked Jack.

"The Goa'uld have done no worse than this to humans for centuries. That the Pangarans can use them for a beneficial result is surprising but not morally objectionable to me, if that's what you mean," said Kanan.

"Ah," said Harry, as the scanner beeped, "I have it, her condition is the reason for the lack of mental development in the symbiotes, there is massive cellular degeneration occurring, old age in essence, she is dying."

"_SG1, this is SGC, come in,_" the tac radio in Jack's vest blurted to life with General Hammond's voice…the signal coming from a wormhole connected to the Pangaran Gate.

"Sierra Gold One, here, go ahead," he said after pressing the transmit button.

"_I have Dr Frasier with me with results on the Tretonin tests, go ahead Doctor_."

"_I am sorry, Colonel,_" said Janet's distorted voice, "b_ut the Pangarans sugarcoated the whole side effect aspect of the drug._"

"That's a shock," said Jack wryly.

"_While Tretonin does appear to cure most diseases, it ultimately creates far bigger problems than it solves."_

"How so?" asked Sam into her own radio.

"_The drug acts like a symbiote in many ways. Upon entering the user's bloodstream it immediately takes over, completely suppressing the normal human immune system. The result is a powerful resistance to disease. But the healing effect is not permanent and the users own immune system remains suppressed. Basically, you have to keep taking the drug for it to work."_

"Considering how it's made, we'd never create enough to sustain our population," said Sam.

"_I don't know how the Pangarans can make enough for their own population_," said Janet her baffled tone coming through.

"They don't," said Sam, "only about twenty percent are on it and they seem to be running into a wall as far as production is concerned."

"They've sucked the queen dry, doc," said Jack with a grin.

"According to the Ambassador and Kanan, she's dying," reported Sam grimly.

"As far as I know, there's no way to reverse the drug's effects. If their queen is dying, as you say, it's just a matter of time before anyone currently living off Tretonin will be facing death as well."

"Dr Frasier, this is Kanan," said the Tok'ra, fingering his own radio, "I believe it is time we call in the help of the Tok'ra Kelmaa and Malek, both are much more able in fields of genetics and medicine than I am, perhaps they can endeavor to find a way to remove Tretonin's effects without death."

"_We'll get in touch with them, and send them to you,_" confirmed Hammond. "_SGC out_."

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**Pangaran negotiation room**

"So you wanted the gate addresses to the Goa'uld worlds because you wanted to snag another queen?" asked Jack shrewdly.

"Colonel, we have no choice but to replace the one we have," said Dorren insistently.

"How did you get to this point, if you don't mind me asking?" said Harry delicately.

"60 years ago, our archaeologists discovered a secret chamber beneath the temple. We found a sealed canopic jar containing a living female symbiote, perfectly persevered in stasis."

"From our study of the temple, we knew the Goa'uld never suffered from illness or disease. We saw this discovery as an opportunity to learn why," said Commander Tegar.

"Of course, once the queen gave birth, we immediately began experimenting on her offspring's physiology, searching for a way to mimic their seemingly perfect immune system. After decades of trying, we finally came up with Tretonin. It seemed like a miracle at first."

"Couldn't your scientists foresee the danger in using it?" asked Harry shaking his head.

"Of course. What we couldn't predict was our inability to refine the drug. We were confident that we could solve the problems if we limited the use, but ultimately, we didn't see why we shouldn't reap the benefits while working to overcome the down side."

"We know the risks in confronting the Goa'uld, but tens of thousands of lives will be lost if we do nothing," said Tegar determinedly. Harry's estimation of the man just went up a notch with that declaration.

"Perhaps, you could assist us. Now you have faced the Goa'uld many times. Your knowledge could give us a tactical advantage," said Dorren rather plaintively.

"Finding a new Queen only treats the symptom, and does not cure you of your dependence on Tretonin," said Harry, shaking his head. "No, the Tok'ra are some of the best medical experts in the Galaxy, we have sent for them to come here and work on an antidote for the Tretonin."

"Our scientists have been trying for years to find a way to reverse its effects. We've made very little progress. We need more time and that can only be obtained by capturing a new queen."

"You don't need more time," said Harry. "You merely need the right sort of help."

Zenna, Jonas and Teal'C had gone to translate more of the temple ruins while Harry met Kelmaa and Malek at the Stargate and escorted them back to the Tretonin facility explaining the situation and the problem the Pangarans were facing. The curiously glanced at the dying queen and did their own scans of both it and drug.

"We will do our best," agreed Kelmaa, her middle-aged host's curled hair flaring out to her shoulders.

"If the drug acts as I suspect, it may be impossible to perfect as the Pangarans would hope. The best we might be able to do is essentially provide an antidote that will allow their normal immune systems to regenerate. They would not possess the superior health that they do now," said Malek in turn.

"And how long would it take to go from a theoretical model for the antidote…to enough for everyone?" asked Harry with raised eyebrows.

"We can make no promises, Ambassador," said Malek, his lips thinning in determination, "but the Tok'ra owe you a debt that cannot be measured. Many of our number survived at Ravana only due to your actions and those of the Tau'ri. We will begin immediately."

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**Pangaran Negotiation Room.**

Harry, Sam and Jack were discussing the situation a few hours later when Teal'C and a very agitated Jonas came storming into the room. The Kelownan bolted straight for Harry and grabbed him by the shoulders.

"Ambassador, it's Egeria," blurted Jonas.

"What? What about Egeria?" said Harry in alarm.

"It's her," gasped Jonas, "Kanan is overcome with shock."

"You're not making sense, Jonas, a coherent sentence please," said Harry and gently slapped the Kelownan's head.

"The Queen that the Pangarans have…" Jonas gulped, "it's Egeria, the Queen of all Tok'ra."

"WHAT? That's impossible, she was killed by Ra!"

"That it appears is not the case, Ambassador Potter," said Teal'C. "This world was home to the Goa'uld warlord Shak'ran for three hundred years before he was defeated by Apophis. But Shak'ran captured this world from Ra in battle before that. Pangara was Ra's base of operations in this sector. It is here where Ra imprisoned Egeria for betrayal in a canopic stasis jar."

"This could be problem," said Jack lightly.

"Are you sure?" said Sam.

"Absolutely, Major Carter," said Kanan powerfully, suddenly coming to fore in Jonas. "The writings in the chamber are quite clear."

"Malek, Kelmaa and the Tok'ra are going to freak," said Harry with a moan. "At least we can plead ignorance until now…damn, I should've guessed this, no 'evil' Goa'uld Queen would sabotage her own young…they would be her best chance to engineer her own escape. Of course, only a Tok'ra is so selfless."

"Let us tell them," said Kanan. Harry nodded and gestured for everyone to follow.

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Malek and Kelmaa were understandably flabbergasted at the news.

"Please understand," said Sam, "we had no idea who she was until now."

"It is hard to believe," said Malek, his eyes wide.

"Many of our historians speculated that Ra did not kill Egeria, as was widely believed, but...we never dared hope that she would ever be found," said Kelmaa.

"She must be freed immediately of course," said Malek with a frown, "every moment that she is kept in this condition is an affront to the Tok'ra."

"We're going to talk to the Pangarans now," said Sam, "but it would really help if you had an antidote to offer."

"Unfortunately, finding an antidote to the Tretonin may be more problematic than we had first hoped," said Malek, sighing and glancing at Kanan and Kelmaa.

"Why is that?" asked Harry.

"There is something unusual about the genetic structure of the symbiotes beyond their lack of knowledge," said Kelmaa.

"In fact, the Tretonin should be working far better than it does and we're not sure why it doesn't."

"But we can say you'll solve this eventually right?" asked Jack.

"At this moment," said Malek, "all I can say is, it is a mystery."

"What, you're suddenly stumped?" said Jack angrily.

"I understand the implication, Colonel. This revelation about Egeria is in no way affecting our analysis of the Tretonin. As of right now, we cannot help the Pangarans."

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Now Harry had the job of telling the Pangarans about the identity of their Queen and the Tok'ra's demands.

"How could we release her?" said Dorran looking conflicted, "it would doom thousands without a remedy."

"The Tok'ra are a race with zero population growth and are involved in a war in which they are taking casualties," explained Harry. "Restoring Egeria's health may be their only hope of survival as a people."

"Have they made no progress at all in reversing the effects of Tretonin?"

"I think it best you hear it from them directly," said Harry, distractedly and bowed himself out the room quickly.

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Kelmaa walked towards the tank holding her beloved Queen, contemplating the sacrifice she was about to make. Her life meant little if the future of the Tok'ra would be ensured because of it. She would miss the others. She stepped over the guard she had stunned with her Zatnickatel and traced her hands over the smooth glass of the tank where Egeria herself lay. She would miss touch as well, simply using hands to do work…it was a strange thing to be thinking about.

"It would be a pointless sacrifice, Kelmaa," said a voice behind her. She gasped in fright and tripped over the body of the guard. Ambassador Potter and former host to Jamilla caught her easily and set her on her feet. She did not know how he could have suddenly been there…she had been sure she was alone…Malek and Kanan had arranged to distract the Pangarans for her attempt to rescue Egeria.

"It would not," retorted Kelmaa.

"My own scans indicate she is beyond Tok'ra medical technology to heal," said the Ambassador, staring at Egeria with a half smile. "If you give your host for Egeria, she would die anyway taking your host along with her."

"This must be done," she insisted.

"Yes, it must," agreed the Ambassador, "but not by you." The man moved so fast that Kelmaa couldn't even hope to stop him. It made her think that the rumors among the Tok'ra that the Ambassador was of the Gatebuilders had some substance.

His form blurred and he ripped off the cover of the tank effortlessly and dunked his head into the water. Egeria didn't hesitate; she snapped herself off from the womb and leapt into the Ambassador's open mouth, causing him to jerk backwards involuntarily. He gasped and his neck twisted slightly as Egeria moved within.

He fell to land on his hands and knees, his breathing deep and harsh.

"Don't do anything," said the Ambassador hoarsely, "no matter what you might see."

Kelmaa nodded faintly, she would've done as ordered anyway as Egeria was within him now. The Ambassador closed his eyes and looked as if he was concentrating very hard…and then his body began to glow a bright yellow-white and then a brilliant aura of undulating white energy tendrils extended outward, causing the room to bathed in its white sheen. Kelmaa was overcome with awe.

And just as quickly, the glow retracted back into the Ambassador and once more he seemed like just a normal man in the white and gold robes. He slowly stood and looked at her, his eyes flashing. Kelmaa immediately kneeled.

"Egeria, it is an honor."

"Rise, Kelmaa, you are not my servant," said Egeria seriously, her voice oddly resonating; the Tok'ra did as her Queen bid. "What you just saw was the Ambassador healing me, you are not to speak of it with anyone, not even other Tok'ra, is that understood?"

"Of course," nodded Kelmaa.

Any further discussion was interrupted when a security guard entered with SG1 and Tegar on their heels. They looked at the symbioteless womb, Harry and Kelmaa and came to the correct conclusion.

"What have you done?" said Tegar angrily. Harry's eyes flashed and his head dipped.

"Oh my goodness," said Sam.

"I have done what I must, Commander," said Harry, now he was speaking. "Egeria's only hope for survival is within me and the medical technology I have access to. Time was running out."

"You have doomed thousands!" shouted Tegar.

"On the contrary," disagreed Harry. "Now that I am host to Egeria I can tell you exactly what she did to sabotage her young. I…I mean she passed on the flawed gene that gave the drug its weakness. You are unable to construct an antidote because of the manner in which she did this. She did it in the hope that the symbiotes would prove useless to you. She wanted to force you to abandon your research once the drug proved untenable. But instead, you made ever increasing quantities."

"And now the Pangarans can't live without it," said Sam.

"It is not what she intended," insisted Harry.

"Their fate is their own doing, not yours. You merely tried to free yourself the only way you could," said Kelmaa. Harry's head dipped and raised his eyes flashing again.

"They do not deserve this end," said Egeria, "not when it can be prevented."

"You created the flaw, you can create the antidote," said Sam with an air of realization.

"I will tell you all you need to know," said Egeria, smiling.

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Harry stood in the Pangaran conference room with Jonas/Kanan, Malek and Kelmaa. He had gathered them for a meeting of the utmost importance. It was a meeting that would be a pivotal point for the future.

"I have healed Egeria," said Harry, "but it is only temporary for the moment. She will require extensive regeneration therapy for a few months before a full lasting recovery is assured."

"You cannot mean a Sarcophagus," said Malek, aghast.

"No," said Harry, "the Goa'uld Sarcophagus is a fatally flawed device as you know. It was created by Tel'Chak based off an Ancient Healing device…ironically, a damaged device. I can use a properly functioning one to rejuvenate Egeria."

"That is amazing," said Kelmaa, shaking her head.

"I have also a big favor to ask of you three," said Harry, his eyes flashed as Egeria took over, "only you know of my release from imprisonment or know that I am alive. SG1 knows, and the Tau'ri General Hammond and his Chief Medical Officer will know, but no one else can…yet."

"But the High Council…" objected Malek.

"The Tok'ra are beyond my wildest hopes and dreams, my children," said Egeria. "But I know all my host knows, and Anubis is a threat beyond any which the Tok'ra has faced. If my survival becomes generally known, I fear the Goa'uld would put all their effort into having me killed. That cannot happen. The best shield I could have is ignorance of my survival and anonymity."

Harry raised his arms and his hands flashed with bright light.

"Now you cannot reveal the secret of my location, even under torture…"

"What?" said Malek in confusion.

"It does not matter," said Egeria. "It will be many years before I can produce young again, comfort yourself though that the Tok'ra will endure."

Harry stood and Egeria receded, "Now if you will excuse me, I have relations with the Pangarans to mend."

_A/N: There you have it. You can imagine how this will affect the future. It follows the episode rather closely but changes in key aspects, its necessary for what I want to come. I've always thought that the SGC was rather lax in not getting a dedicated Ambassador for alien relations in canon, Daniel sometimes did that, but he was more a mediating influence for Jack's brashness and apologizing for him. Hope you enjoyed the Artemis…yes, she is Aurora class. I used the original Alteran name for the ship seen in SG:A Season 2 finale._


	32. Chapter 32

_**Chapter Thirty-Two – Deadalus**_

**Briefing Room 1, SGC, Earth**

For the millionth time Harry reminded himself that he should look into getting himself an official office at the SGC. Yes, he shared laboratory space with Sam when they were working on the science of anything related to a new technology or galactic crisis, but lately he'd been asked to do more Ambassadorial work for Earth than in the past. Around him on the conference table was a mass of papers, files and folders, all which was relevant to Pangara, and he'd been asked to draft a report for the STO on the possibility of bringing the Pangarans into the Terran-Tok'ra-Asgard alliance against the Goa'uld.

It was looking mildly promising.

The Pangaran society reminded him somewhat of the U.K. They had their historical royal class, which was still accorded some favor and still held numerous deeds and titles, and had a limited say in local government, but their executive leadership was selected by popular vote. Councilor Dorren held that role at the moment, and there was an election due in a year. In that respect Harry could see no cultural clashes with Earth.

Militarily speaking they were roughly on a level the United States was just after World War 2. They had the beginnings of easy hand held automatic projectile weaponry like the venerable Thompson Machine gun on Earth. They had little in terms of air power except for their airships, as they really had no necessity to develop heavier than air flight…they were a singular planetary government with no other countries in competition.

Their level of computer technology was also along WW2 lines, with big heavy transistor machines that filled entire rooms. It had been quite nostalgic to walk through those rooms for Harry and Sam.

The only real scientific field in which they stood out was Chemistry. The ability to make Tretonin from the physiology of a symbiote was something of note, as it was even beyond current Terran standards, even the Tok'ra Malek had been impressed by it. On that note, distribution of the Tretonin antidote had begun to the Pangarans, after Egeria had instructed Malek on the key to the genetic fault she had introduced into her offspring. The Pangarans had even begun to refine the antidote themselves after attaining a large enough working sample.

He concluded that beyond their abilities to supply advanced Chemistry and more military boots on the ground through a Stargate (who still needed technical training and support from Earth before it could happen) that Pangara had little else to offer the alliance.

**Do not dismiss the value of either, Harry,** said Egeria in his mind. **Any help, no matter how small or large, could make all the difference in the end.**

_True,_ he admitted to her.

At this point, Sam entered the room and she appeared in a big hurry to get to the General's office, a very worried expression on her face.

"Hey, Ambassador," she said, "come along, you need to hear this too."

He nodded and walked with her as she knocked on Hammond's office door. The big man himself was on the phone at the moment and gestured through the window to them that they could enter.

"Yes," said Hammond into the phone, "I understand, make sure it's delivered. Good." He put the phone down. "Major, Ambassador, what can I do for you?"

"Sir, I'm afraid we have another security breach," said Sam with a sigh.

"Another?" said Harry in astonishment, "what is it with you and discovering breaches lately?"

"Fate I guess," said Sam, shaking her head. "This morning as I was doing shopping at the mall, I was approached by Julia Donovan in the parking lot."

"The reporter from Inside Access?" asked Hammond in confirmation.

"Yes sir," nodded Sam. "She stated that my name has been linked to a secret government project called 'Prometheus'. That she also had the money trail towards it and that it was appropriated without the usual congressional oversight. She was clearly hitting me for a reaction."

"Which you didn't give," said Harry confidently, knowing that Sam, who had faced down System Lords wouldn't quake in the face of a somewhat clueless reporter. She nodded and went on.

"To go even further, she waved a small solid cylinder of what distinctly looked like Trinium in my face," said Sam incredulously. "She apparently even had private experts analyze it…"

"Oh great," said Harry sarcastically. "That's just what we need at the moment."

"She caught me off-guard though with regards to the Trinium," admitted Sam, "I mean, that's the most tightly controlled and secret element on Earth and off it…and she just casually waves it in front of me in a public parking lot. I didn't know how to react to that."

"You did the right thing, Major," reassured Hammond. "Our official policy is to deny everything."

"Unfortunately, in this case, I don't think it's gonna be good enough," said Sam, wincing.

"The sample of Trinium and her source of info?" queried Harry.

"It's hard to say for sure, Ambassador, but just the fact that she knew the name indicates we've had a serious breach of security,"

"I'll inform the Pentagon and the STO, have a full investigation started," said Hammond with a nod. "In the meantime I think Major Davis should pay her a visit."

"Did Donovan give any indication when she was ready to file her report?" asked Harry.

"In four days."

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"It seems to me the initial expenditure on Prometheus was too large to hide," said Sam a day later, walking into the Briefing Room with Harry.

"Well, at least the STO has solved that problem in the medium-term," said Harry.

Major Davis was there still dressed in his formal Air Force blues talking to Hammond, no doubt about his visit to Ms Donovan.

"She's stubborn, sir," said Davis. "And her mind was rather disorientating, if I could paint a picture of it, I would say its like Dr Jackson's lab on it's worst days. Just filled with reports, facts, figures in a jumble…I don't know how she makes sense of it. But then again, it's her mind…and I'm rather new to this whole telepath thing."

"It's Legilimency, Major Davis," said Harry in greeting, meeting the eyes of the man unflinchingly. At least this explained why Hammond was staring at the floor while addressing his subordinate.

"Ah," said Davis frowning as he stared at Harry. "I'm getting nothing but a void from you."

"That's as it should be, I'm defending against your probe."

"Be that as it may," said Hammond getting back on track, "has traditional investigation revealed anything yet?"

"We're working on it, but so far we've got nothing," said Davis. "It could be anything from a technician working on the project who thinks the world should know…or Senator Kinsey."

Harry inwardly scowled at the mention of the Senator that had long been a thorn in the side of the SGC and its efforts to protect the planet. The NID database had a nice fat file on the sleazy politician and his association with them. He had also been the biggest hurdle for the President to get over with regards to getting the STO off the ground. In fact, it had taken the President holding the figurative Sword of Damocles (the NID database) over the Senator's head to get the man to back down.

"How much does she actually know?" asked Hammond.

"She thinks Prometheus is some kind of fusion reactor," said Davis.

"Then maybe we don't have a problem."

"With the money trail and Trinium, I think she can get a lot more, sir," disagreed the Major.

"I'm calling the President," said Hammond, and looked at Harry with a significant glance, who nodded before the General walked into his office.

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_**Inside Access**_** Offices, Washington D.C, Earth**

Sam and Major Davis had both dressed in their formal Air force blues for the occasion, seated at the main conference room of Inside Access offices, while Harry took on the feared disguise of a ubiquitous and ominous Man in Black. Black business suit framing his strong body, perfectly white shirt, black tie, dark glasses and a mask of neutrality on his face with no expression. He even completed the effect by exuding an aura of intimidation and power that would affect the minds of everyone who saw him.

'**You are having too much fun doing this,**' accused Egeria.

"_Hey, it's fun getting to play a stereotype_,' grinned Harry back.

His aura was effecting Alvin, Julia Donovan's producer, rather acutely as the balding man (who looked like he spent way too much time in the sun, he wasn't burnt but looked quite tanned) couldn't sit still and had taken to pacing back and forth, nervously glancing at Harry and then at the door of the room, waiting for his best news journalist/anchor to arrive.

Just then the woman of the hour entered. Julia Donovan had rather similar hair to Sam, though it was longer and more styled, she was taller than Sam and her face was nowhere near as attractive, but it was tough to beat Sam on that score. She wore a light blue suit and dress combination that made her appear the epitome of the working female executive.

"Al, we need to talk about this production schedule…" she said immediately, clearly not expecting there to be company, when she did see who she was actually meeting, she immediately got defensive, "what the hell is this?" she demanded.

"Take it easy, Julia," said Al placatingly.

"No," she said angrily, "if you think you can kill my story by going over my head to my producer, then you're dead wrong."

"Just sit down please," implored Al, she glanced at Harry flinched slightly and sat down, "the Head office has decided that, for the time being, it is in their best interest not to run the story."

"You mean they caved," stated Donovan in disgust.

"It was a personal request from the President to the Chairman of the corporation that owns this network," explained Davis.

"I don't believe this," said Donovan shaking her head.

"We're going to need all the material you have on this story. Tapes, notes, interviews…"

"You can't force me to give you anything…what are you gonna do, have your MIB 'disappear me' if I don't?" she asked sarcastically.

"Oh no, he won't do that," said Davis with a mysterious smirk, "he's here merely to facilitate the transfer of the material. So you see, we can…force you…since the materials were obtained in violation of numerous federal laws, we'd just hoped that you would cooperate as a law-abiding member of our society…and given the fact that now your story is dead."

"You see, that's where you're wrong," retorted Donovan, "all I have to do is make a couple of phone calls to some foreign broadcasters. I'm sure they'd be very interested."

"I'd advise against that," said Davis coldly, "and I think you'll find that they would also get orders from up top to stop the story."

"You're kidding," said Donovan with narrowed eyes, "this is international as well?"

Harry realized it had been a calculated fold on Davis's part, to imply that Prometheus had international scope, which would definitely put a crimp on any aspirations Donovan had to go International with the story.

"Okay, Okay...look, maybe there's a compromise here. Whatever this thing is...I figure it's too big to stay secret forever, especially if it involves multiple countries. Am I right? Eventually, you're gonna go public. You let Julia take a camera crew to document Prometheus, top to bottom. When the time is right, we get a world exclusive," proving that Alvin had some experience getting irreconcilable parties to agree to compromise…which was probably what a News Producer had to do.

"I don't think so," said Sam, narrowing her eyes at the Producer.

"Everyone will sign a non-disclosure agreement, including me. The video tape will be the property of the United States Air Force…you'll be in complete control."

Harry laughed inwardly.

'**There's nothing like a good conspiracy**,' mused Egeria in satisfaction within his mind. '**I missed this.'**

"Forget it!" declared Donovan indignantly, "they're gonna sit on this for fifty years."

"Julia," said Al, his own temper flaring, "when the President of the United States kills your story, that's it. Game over. You can't publish here, or International, you try any other method they could charge you with treason."

"_The game is afoot,_" thought Harry.

**SGC Briefing Room 1**

SG1 had gathered in full for the brief on what was to be done now. Jack had given Harry pointed looks of amusement at his MIB outfit, which he had yet to remove as they had only just got off the plane from Washington.

"Do you really think she would go through with publishing anyway?" asked Jonas.

"We have no way of knowing and the fact is, we can't take the chance," said Hammond gravely.

"There's also the question of where she's getting her information. If we kill the story without plugging the leak, there's no guarantee this won't happen all over again," explained Major Davis.

"What are you suggesting?" asked Jonas curiously.

"Once Ms Donovan left the meeting, her producer agreed to reveal the source in exchange for a tour of the facility," said Davis.

"The Pentagon and the STO feels that this is the best way to contain the situation. Once we've confirmed we have the source, we destroy all video tape and related materials," explained the General.

"So, essentially, we're just double-crossing her," said Jonas with a slight disapproving tone.

"We've no other choice," sighed Hammond.

"With no hard evidence, she'd only be able to run the story in the tabloids," said Davis.

"This…is an insanely bad idea," said Jack and turned to face Harry, "don't you agree…Ambassador?" If Jack was looking for backup, he was sorely disappointed.

"It's necessary that we find the source," said Harry with a raised eyebrow. "Overtly violating the minds of Ms Donovan and her producer, will be required if we wanted to do this the easy way. Which I and Major Davis refuse to do…as such is the beginning of a very slippery ethical and moral slope."

"The decision's been made," said Hammond with finality. "Major, I want you and Jonas to take care of this."

"Yes, sir," said Sam reluctantly.

"Dismissed."

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**TSS **_**Deadalus**_**, Area 51 Shipyards**

Harry stood, invisible and out of phase, in a corner of the CIC of the newest Terran Destroyer that just had to get a few supplementary systems installed before she would be deemed ready. The _Deadalus_ was like her sister ship in every way, except that she had been built with onboard Qomputers operating the various systems of the ship. Prometheus was scheduled to come in soon for a refit that would also do the same overhaul of her IT systems.

The ship had been emptied for the occasion, and the crew training on _Deadalus_ and especially her Captain was rather irked, as Jack would say.

His ears perked as it picked up Sam, Jonas and the TV crew coming closer and finally emerging through the main bulkhead door and into CIC.

"It doesn't look very alien to me," said Julia Donovan, staring around at all the blinking control stations.

"The controls are all standard design, some of the key systems use crystal technology rather than wires and chips, the hard part is making them compatible," said Sam; an awful summation but she was probably being so vague because it wasn't necessary to elaborate to a civilian who didn't have a science education and everything was going to be censored.

"All right," said Donovan eventually, "let's set up in here," the three men and one-woman camera crew nodded and started to set up the video equipment. "I'd like to see more."

Sam and Jonas nodded and escorted Donovan and her producer out of the CIC, while the two guards remained to watch over the camera crew. The woman with dark red hair took out a laptop over to the Helm station and put in on top of it. Harry grinned in triumph when he saw that the male cameraman with the spiky blonde hair and ice-cold eyes opened his camera's tape compartment to pull out a Zatnickatel. The red head pried open a panel on the side of the Helm. But the guards had finally caught sight of it.

"What are you doing?" asked the SFs moving closer. The spike haired guy abruptly popped up and discharged once into each guard, causing them to lose consciousness immediately.

The other two guys dragged away the guards while the red head started to interface her laptop with the Helm station…clearly trying to take control. With the quantum hardware and similarly based encryption it would've taken her laptop decades to break the command codes, but it seemed the NID had done their homework before trying this as she entered the codes and gained control.

"I think I've got it," said the woman triumphantly, "we're in business."

The spike haired cameraman handed pistols and handheld radios to the other two and simply said, "Let's go get the others." They nodded and walked out of CIC. Harry glanced at the nearest ship status display and saw that she was locking it down…preventing anyone gaining access from outside.

"_Jones, come in,_" came the voice of the others over the radio.

Jones picked up her radio. "Go ahead."

"_I need you to seal a room for me, Charlie, Charlie 4107."_

Jones typed frantically on her laptop and a few moments later she said, "Done." Harry could only surmise that either Sam or Jonas had found out that the crew weren't who they appeared to be and managed to put up a fight and had gotten locked up for their trouble.

The next obstacle the NID hijackers had was rather amusing.

"Full diagnostic?" said Jones, staring in horror at her screen. "No, no, no." And began typing frantically. The only place to do that from would've been the engine room and after a brief glance at the Security station, he saw that Jonas had used his own command code to initiate it. That was just like the wily Jonas and his own Tok'ra Kanan to do.

"Smith, come in," said Jones.

"_Yeah, go ahead."_

"We've got a problem, the Qomputer's been tied down with a diagnostic program, I need you to shut it down."

"_The controls are frozen_," reported another hijacker.

"If you don't close that problem, I'm not going to be able to establish a lockdown and we're gonna be overrun by security, not to mention being able to bring Simmons aboard," said Jones.

There were a few tense moments as Harry heard that Alvin the producer had finally seen fit to reveal himself in complicity with the hijackers. The problem being that he had seen what Jonas had done, and told Smith and the other hijacker. The results were that Jones regained full control.

"There we go," she said in satisfaction. She walked over to the Science station. She tapped on a few controls and finally…there was a ringing sound of a transporter and with a flash of white light a tall man appeared in the CIC. He was wearing a sharp business suit and had slightly long curly brown hair; his hazel eyes were sharp and calculating as he looked around.

"Ah good, Jones, almost right on time," said Simmons. Harry scowled as it became obvious who the leak was…Simmons was a man who had a bloody office in the Pentagon itself and was deep in the NID hierarchy. He had been the one who's refusal to listen to Orlin and Sam that using the superweapon on Velona had nearly would result in Earth's annihilation by the Ascended Ancients. He had also been pushing for Sam to be relieved of duty due to her apparent 'possession' and 'alien influence' by Orlin.

"Boss is here," said Jones into her radio.

"_Good,_" was all Smith said.

"Now, I think it's time we make our play," said Simmons and arrogantly sat in the Captain's chair. "Jones, contact A51 Air control, deliver our threat of overloading the hyperdrive and then we wait."

"Yes, sir."

Harry returned to his corner of the CIC and willed a Silence Sphere around him and pressed a hand to the communicator in his ear. "Potter to Hammond."

"_What's your status?"_

"Safely aboard, no one the wiser," reported Harry. "They have _Deadalus_ under lockdown and are in control. We were right, it was the NID, Colonel Frank Simmons specifically."

"_Understood, continue as discussed."_

"Very well, Potter out."

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The wait was rather boring. It took a few hours for the SGC to mobilize, and Harry spent it by doing high-level dimensional math in his head all the while looking at Simmons in all his NID-smugness as he sat on the Captain's chair.

"Sir, sensors detect a large number of lifesigns have gathered at the surface," said Jones.

"Ah, the SGC, well let's not disappoint, Smith," said Simmons into his radio, "send a transmission stating our demands."

"_Sir,_" confirmed Smith. It took a few moments but a channel was established with the mobile SGC command post.

"_This is Major Davis, go ahead_."

"_I assume, by now, you've confirmed the status of the hyperdrive. So you know we're not bluffing about blowing this ship."_

"_What do you want?"_

"_We want the roof to be retracted and you'll allow us to leave Sol, no interference from Prometheus or your little gray friends either, we see one Asgard Cruiser come within beaming range…we kill hostages. I'll be generous and give you ten minutes to comply."_

'**They want to leave the Terran system? I wonder why?'** mused Egeria.

'_Probably the same reason they let a town full of people be infected with cloned Goa'uld just to get a Hyperspace capable ship…they want something out there._'

'**They must be desperate for it, if this is lengths they will go to**.'

Harry's communicator mentally warned him of an incoming transmission, so he put up another Silence Sphere.

"Potter."

"_Hammond here, be advised, Major Carter has been locked inside storage room Charlie 4107 Deck 7, she has made contact on another frequency with the command post, she is being directed to sabotage the sublight control relay on deck 8. You must prevent her from doing that._"

"Understood."

Harry walked carefully around the CIC stations and slipped through the slightly ajar bulkhead door and headed into the interior decks of the large ship. He had to keep his invisibility despite the fact that the ship was virtually empty in the other areas, but there was still cameras and visual sensors everywhere that the hijackers could be monitoring, he also couldn't use the elevators as the ship's systems would register them moving, thus he had to use the emergency crawlspaces and ladders. So it took far longer than normal to reach Storage Room Charlie 1407.

The ten-minute deadline was close to lapsing when he arrived at the locked room; the ship started to rumble and whine as he sublight engines and AG drives came on-line. The inertial dampeners kicked but despite this he could feel the slight upwards acceleration that lasted for too long…the roof had obviously been retracted…the AG drives went off line and the sublight kicked in sending the sleek ship knifing through the air.

At this moment, a trail of sparks appeared through at the base of the solid thick Trinium alloy door, Sam was cutting her way out with a plasma torch that was probably stored in there. He raised his arm and with a thought to his Chromesuit it materialized a little gift from Narim on the said arm.

He pressed the Phaseshift gauntlet and it lit up. The door's structure suddenly wobbled as its phase with the normal matter in the rest of the Universe was effected and he simply stepped through, dissipating his invisibility as he experienced that inside out sensation when phasing through something.

Sam was rather severely startled to see him.

"Harry? What the…"

"Hey Sam, explanations will be forthcoming," assured Harry, "but you can't go through with your plan of sabotaging the sublight drive."

"What? Why not?"

"General Hammond and I guessed after you told us of the security breach, that it was the NID behind it, the Trinium Donovan had made it obvious…at least to us…so we decided to let the NID go forward with whatever plan they had devised…we needed confirmation so I journeyed with you when you and Major Davis confronted Donovan, but her producer was rather ill-disciplined with his thoughts and as we spoke about Prometheus he was all but shouting to me that the NID had paid him a lot of money to get him to play along."

"So you infiltrated this ship yourself to stop them?"

"On the contrary, I don't want to stop them, not yet anyway…General Hammond also wanted to score an intelligence coup, not just arrest rogue NID operatives that would clam up as soon as we had them in holding. So not only do we know who is the leak…it's Simmons by the way…but we also find out why they are so eager to get a Hyperspace capable ship."

"By letting them go to their destination and then stopping them," said Sam in understanding.

"Exactly," said Harry with a grin. "And speak of the devil…"

They heard the whine of the Hyperspace engines powering up and it peaked to settle down to a dull rumbling in the background noise of the ship.

"We're on our way."

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Of course, when things are going right and according to plan, it was common wisdom that then you've overlooking something. This was usually something critical. In this case, it was the fact that Harry had made the assumption that the NID hijackers would be content to leave Sam in the storage room. This was not the case.

The vertically rising door abruptly sprang to life and rose into the ceiling. There was no time to turn himself invisible again, and despite the fact that he had been surprised by it, the two hijackers carrying Zats were doubly surprised to see two people in the storage room where there only supposed to be one.

Harry surged forward with all the speed he could muster and delivered an elbow strike directly into a surprised Smith's right temple; whom promptly dropped like a puppet who had his strings cut. The other nameless NID hijacker, who had brown hair and was few inches shorter than Harry, fired his Zat, only for it to be harmlessly dissipated by the chromesuit.

Seeing it had no effect the hijacker turned tail and ran. He managed to get away by virtue of the fact that he had been standing further away from the door and had clearly been covering his partner.

"Watch him!" snapped Harry at Sam as she relived Smith of his Zat. She nodded and Harry tore down the corridor after the other hijacker. With a head start, the hijacker made some serious ground before Harry got his own stride in. They clambered down and up ladders between decks, ducked around bulkheads, the guy occasionally shot Zat blasts in the hope of causing him to slow down and duck them instinctually, but he never fell for it and it allowed him to close the gap.

Finally Harry got a good idea of where the hijacker was attempting to go, back to the Engineering deck, where the hostages were. But as pursuer and pursued sprinted down a narrow corridor a few sections away from main engineering, the gap was less than two meters. The guy had a turn of speed far in excess of human norms, but for a newly evolved Terran it was normal stuff. The hijacker then decided to turn tables on Harry.

He slid smoothly to the floor to suddenly bleed off his momentum, while Harry was forced to rocket past the guy. The hijacker tried to trip Harry up from the floor in the process but the Alteran's reflexes were up to the task and he deftly avoided the groping hands. Harry pulled in his arms to aid his turn in mid-air and came to a skidding stop to face the heavily breathing hijacker.

Harry could feel it before the actual event. A gathering of energy. A focus of will. And with a grunt of effort the hijacker flung his hand forward to release a telekinetic wave. In the exact moment it was released, Harry flung his own wave to counter it.

'**That idiot!'** railed Egeria in anger.

Harry would've joined her in ranting if his focus weren't completely on countering the energy that the hijacker was flinging at him. The air between the two was starting to crackle and the smell of ozone pervaded the area.

"You fool!" shouted Harry, gritting his teeth. The hijacker didn't respond but to increase the energy in the wave. Harry had no choice but to do the same, all the while his mind racing in a way to get out of this mess, preferably without blowing up the ship around them.

He was saved from doing so by the bolt of a Zat that was shot from around the corner. It hit the surprised hijacker square in the back and flung him forward. However, the balance of the competing telekinetic waves was thrown off completely and Harry's wave overpowered the other and shot off down the corridor and impacted against a wall at the turn. It buckled and twisted, sparks shot out of the corners and the lights flickered ominously before coming back on.

Sam poked her head around the corner and eyed the damaged section with wide eyes.

"You okay?" she asked, walking over to the unconscious hijacker and producing ziplock plastic tie and cuffing the man. It wouldn't hold him the long run but it was a temporary solution at least depending on the level of control the man had over his telekinesis, though any attempt to forcibly pull them apart would cause them to cut into skin very quickly.

"Fine," answered Harry shortly. "I thought I told you to stay with the other prisoner."

"He's secured in a nice cozy cleaning closet, unconscious, with the door lock scrambled," said Sam lightly. He relieved the telekinetic hijacker of his Zat and began to unceremoniously pull him along towards main engineering control.

"We need to get to engineering, see what damage our little scuffle caused," said Harry grimly.

"Umm, except for the wall over there…" said Sam trailing off uncertainly at the look on his face.

"Sam, remember this well, the metaphysical and physical does not like each other, unless specifically channeled in certain ways, they'll cancel each other out completely," said Harry with a sigh.

"So that wave just caused every system within its dissipation radius to…shut down?" she said in alarm.

"Essentially," confirmed Harry.

They entered Engineering to find that Al the Producer had been shot and was dead on the floor and Jonas and Donovan had been rather securely tied up together in a rather…compromising position facing each other, looking mightily uncomfortable. Harry couldn't decide whether Jonas was horrified or relieved at seeing him and Sam armed with Zats, coming to the rescue or be embarrassed by the situation.

Harry could imagine Jack's comments at this moment but kept them to himself. Sam proceeded to untie them as he dumped the telekinetic guy against the wall, and headed over to the C-shaped control console and began a diagnostic. It wasn't good.

"What happened?" asked Jonas, pulling his legs out from underneath an indignant Julia Donovan and got up.

"Well," said Harry wryly, and pointed to the hijacker, "Telly the Telekinetic here, decided to pick a fight with me in corridor outside using his powers, the aforementioned powers depolarized one of the main control conduits leading to the Hyperdrive."

"Oh great," said Jonas, his shoulders sagging.

"That's bad, I take it?" asked Donovan.

"It's like we're in a car that's accelerator is stuck to the floor and wont let go," explained Harry.

"Can it be fixed?"

"It could," said Sam with a frown, "but it would take hours considering that the ship is in space and moving at full speed in hyperspace. We also have the problem of Simmons and Jones in the CIC, it won't be long before they demand a check in from either of their associates over the radio."

"Then I suggest you get to them before that," said Harry, frowning at the console, "but make sure to keep Jones conscious, she's the only one who knows our course and destination…without that it would make getting home extremely tricky."

"Come on, Jonas, take the Ambassador's Zat," said Sam, gesturing for the Kelownan to follow. Harry handed the weapon over and the two left, leaving Donovan alone with Harry. He enjoyed a minute of undistracted peace is he continued gathering the diagnostic data he would need to make repairs when Donovan sat down on the other chair near the other console.

"So you're not really an MIB?" she asked innocently.

"Nothing exactly like the MIB exists," answered Harry distractedly. "I was in your offices to add a visibly mysterious threatening presence that would encourage your cooperation."

"So are you an alien too?" she probed next. Harry turned sharply his eyes narrowing. "One of those hijacker thugs said Jonas was one."

"Whatever I tell you, you won't be able to substantiate or report," said Harry turning back to the screen. "So why are you bothering?"

"Alvin may have turned out to be a lying backstabbing friend, but he was right about one thing, this secret is way too big to keep secret for long…sooner or later, the truth will out. But I will admit that I have selfish reasons, and being one of the first reporters that will tell the world about this is one of them."

Harry sighed and his shoulders slumped. "We realize that it will get out eventually…and we are steering social and cultural policy to ease into the reality of the Galaxy and Universe out there…but believe me when I tell you Ms Donovan, it will still be a shock, no matter what we do in preparation and it will take the resources of every government on the planet to prevent civilization from turning itself inside out."

"I take it that there are serious bad guys out there then," said Donovan thoughtfully, Harry didn't react at all, in fact, his silence was more of an answer than if he had opened his mouth. "I saw outside that this ship is absolutely overflowing with armament and weapons, I know the military likes their toys but even they would never invest the money and effort if there wasn't a major threat…Ambassador, dare I ask why you are called by that title?"

"I can tell you that S.E.T.I. will be out of business in the future, and that not everyone out there are bad guys."

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An hour later, Sam and Jonas returned and reported that Simmons, Jones, and the other two NID creeps were in the ship's brig and were all unconscious, all under the watchful eyes of the two revived SFs that had initially come on board. She had the laptop Jones had been controlling the ship with her and showed him the course they were on.

"Well the good news is I've repaired the control conduit of the Hyperdrive, much faster than the original estimate because I didn't know exactly what was wrong," said Harry after looking at the course data. "So we can drop back into real space."

"Then why haven't you done so?" asked Jonas worriedly.

"That would be the bad news I have to give," said Harry grimly, "we were in hyperspace for forty odd minutes while the conduit was out, essentially for that time we were out of control…and in that time I'm sure our course has drifted off the original baseline quite considerably."

"I thought you said it only was like our foot was stuck on the gas," said Donovan.

"Traveling through Hyperspace is infinitely more complex than just driving down the highway," he explained. "Anyway, the moment we go out of Hyperspace we will most assuredly end up a considerable distance from whatever destination the NID had in mind. And I'm not just talking about a few million kilometers off, I talking about hundreds of Lightyears off."

"And with no point of origin we couldn't plot a course anywhere, we'd be lost, hell we're already lost," said Sam her voice sounding slightly despondent.

"Why?" asked Donovan faintly. "Couldn't you just use your fancy sensors or something to determine what our position is?"

"Navigating through Hyperspace is inertial," explained Harry. "You have a point of origin, then you have the coordinates of your destination and you basically punch a hole into fabric of space-time and tunnel your way through to your destination. Imagine you're on a wide-open stretch of land in a car and have to get to a specific point…but someone closed your eyes and forced you hands off the steering wheel while and you kept going forward…you have no idea in which direction the steering wheel turned and the moment you get out…"

"I get it, thanks," said Donovan raising her hands. "What about known star locations, cant you plot our location that way?"

"You're still thinking too terrestrial," said Sam, shaking her head. "Navigating by the stars is fine on Earth but…"

"The stars have changed wherever we end up," nodded Donovan.

"But this ship has Qomputers doesn't it? And astronomical facilities," said Jonas thoughtfully.

"Yes," said Sam frowning at the Kelownan.

"One of our allies," said Jonas delicately, "has star mapping technology that can plot a position merely based on the starfield seen from a planet." He looked significantly at Harry.

'_Egeria?_'

'**Very well, tell Kanan he can proceed, but the program is to be deleted after we've used it to get back.'**

'_Understood_.'

"Do it, but put failsafe in place," nodded Harry. Jonas nodded and headed out of Engineering towards the Astonomy lab on Deck 1. The planners of the DC ships believed that they should at least have some minor science capability so that they had a role beyond the war with the Goa'uld and could stay in service after it had ended. And more often that not, it was science that had saved the day on numerous occasions for the SGC, and not strength of arms.

"What was all that about?" asked Donovan.

"We might get out of this after all," said Sam hopefully.

"By the way, does that laptop say why the NID wanted the _Deadalus_?" asked Harry.

"No it doesn't but I talked to Jones and…persuaded her to tell me," said Sam delicately, implying that there was more to that than simple persuasion. "Apparently when the NID was still running their illegal offworld op under our favorite rogue Colonel…" referring to Harry Mayborne, "they found a tablet written in an ancient language"…Alteran… "detailing a large cache of advanced weapons and artifacts. Simmons wanted it badly."

"Indeed," said Harry, looking intrigued.

"Wait, you're saying that all this has been some wackos idea of a treasure hunt?" said Donovan.

"Yes," said Sam dryly. "Now I think we better get your late Producer into the cold room, luckily there's no food there for it to be spoiled by his body. Then off to CIC and wait for the Hyperdrive to run its programmed course."

In CIC, Sam assigned herself to Helm, while Harry settled himself in the forward Weapon Console. Donovan couldn't decide what to do with herself and Sam pointed her to the Communications station.

"I'm a news anchor," said Donovan, and gestured to all the buttons and screens around the station, "Not a com officer…or whatever you call it."

"You make a good point there," said Harry, "but I doubt we'll be in need of one. You just occupy yourself by playing Solitaire on the computer over there for the next few hours. The Major will do the flying, and I will do the shooting…if it comes down to that."

"What?" yelped Donovan.

"In…two hours, when the Hyperdrive finishes its programmed course we will be pulled into real space, there's no telling who's backyard we'd be accidentally intruding upon. It could be bad guys we know…which would be bad, or it could be unknown guys, and this ship isn't fit to make proper First Contact at the moment."

"_Jonas to Harry._"

"Go ahead."

"_I've got a good start on programming the Astronomical Qomputer with what we'd need, but it'll take a while_."

"Define a while."

"_Working non stop…twenty hours,_" reported Jonas.

"That must be one bloody complex program," said Sam, sounding impressed and awed. "Then again, if it must calculate coordinates using the positions of thousands of millions visible stars, it's not surprising."

The time passed slowly until the Hyperdrive would shut down. Harry busied himself with readying the particle cannons and rail guns and doing inventory of what ordnance was ready in the launch tubes. There were only 18 AHM-1As on board and in the tubes, Colonel Pendergast and his crew had trained on them before the hijack occurred but the ship's full missile loadout hadn't been filled as yet. Not that it would matter, since there was no crew to reload the launchers anyway. Luckily the rail guns had full ammo loads.

It wasn't great, but it was something.

"Ok, dropping out of Hyperspace in ten seconds," reported Sam, putting on the interface helmet for the Helm and readying her hands on the controls.

"Shield and weapons such as they are, ready," said Harry.

_Daedalus_ burst out of an outgoing Hyperspace window into a rather lopsided starfield with minor nebulae close by and no stars were close by…they were in interstellar space and not in a star system. Her long-range scanners swept out in every direction.

"Okay, no ships within twenty Light Years radius of us," he let out a breath he didn't even realize he'd been holding.

"I think we're on the outer arm of the Milky Way," said Sam, her head turning as she was 'looking' around the ship.

"That would mean we've traveled at least nine thousand odd Light Years," said Harry. "Simmons original course was rimward, so at least we haven't deviated too much."

"Carter to Jonas, how's it coming?"

"_Steadily,_" replied the Kelownan from the Astronomy Lab. "_I've finished the base code of the program, now its just a matter of compiling and cross-referencing the astronomical database into the program. Twelve hours until it finishes._"

"Can't it go faster," complained Donovan.

"_Hey, be thankful its this fast already, if this ship hadn't had Qomputers it would've taken two weeks to do the compiling. We wouldn't survive that long…since there's no food provision on the Deadalus._"

"Hyperspace event!" shouted Harry in alarm, staring at his console. "One million kilometers off the port bow."

"Shit!" said Sam, settling her helmet back on and staring in that direction. "I see it. It's not Goa'uld. It's an unknown alien vessel. Looks rather mean too."

Harry brought up the visual sensors to show the ship on the main viewscreen and directed every subspace sensor they had towards it. The alien vessel was six hundred meters in general size, it was made up of a thick C-shape that formed the aft of the ship, while a forward hull jutted out of it smoothly whilst still conveying a predatory aspect. It was painted a purple/blue giving it an exotic, mysterious look.

"Raise shields, tactical analysis, Ambassador," said Sam, as she turned the _Deadalus_ to point the sharp bow towards the leisurely closing alien vessel.

"No obvious missile tubes or launchers, I am seeing energy weapon emitters along the interior flanks, it's hard to see through their EMCON but before it went up I got a good read, their main armament is a pulsed delta particle weapon. Rather potent and it will collapse our shields given enough hits."

"Can we do damage to them if it came down to it?" asked Sam.

"Their shields are less advanced than ours, comparable to standard Goa'uld Ha'tak. Judging from the energy readings I'm reading their power readings as double, no triple our own, so we would have to pound extremely long on those shields to breach them."

"That makes for rather even odds," said Sam hopefully. "OK, lets start diplomacy, Ambassador, send First Contact package, append a text only message, '_Alien Vessel, this is the Terran Starship Deadalus, if we have intruded on your space, we apologize, we are heaving to for repairs to our navigation system. We will be leaving in twelve hours._' Got that?"

"Rerouting Com controls…sending package and message…done," reported Harry, his hands dancing extremely fast over his console. Anxious moments passed as the alien vessel continued to close, eventually it reached half a million kilometers distance…and then when it reached three hundred thousand, it stopped advancing.

"Did they respond?" asked Donovan nervously.

"No, but they have stopped," said Sam obviously, "which is a good sign. They weren't closing on an attack vector so it means we must've gotten through to them."

"What is in a First Contact package anyway?" asked the reporter curiously, as this was somewhat her field.

"Basically, our alphabet, English language database, and a picture of 'clothed' man and woman waving hello, a sampling of classical music, and mathematical constants," said Sam with a grin. "Theoretically, it should allow an alien species to respond to us given enough time."

Twenty nervous minutes passed where the alien ship was just keeping station and not making any provocative moves.

"Getting a response, text only," said Harry, jumping at the sound of the beeping from his console.

"That was quick," said Sam, not liking it.

"They say '_Terran vessel, we understand your…predicament, you have…infringed on our coreward border. Do not engage further active scans. Do you wish assistance in your navigation problem?_'"

"Rather friendly," commented Donovan hopefully.

"What do you think Sam?" asked Harry cautiously. "They could provide us with accurate PO coordinates."

"The chance that they use the same coordinate system as ours are extremely remote," disagreed Sam. "Tell them, thank you, but no. We have things well in hand. We will not scan further and they can monitor us to their own satisfaction until we leave. If they wish to pursue diplomatic relations with us, ask them for Stargate coordinates to a neutral location of their choosing or their homeworld."

Harry nodded and encoded the message and sent it off. The reply came five minutes later.

"Shit…" said Harry, "it seems they know of the Stargates and use them but are surprised that there are any outside of their space."

"Well they obviously only had their own explored space to use as reference, and no Abydos Cartouche map data, so they would be pretty much stuck within their borders," mused Sam. "Anything else?"

"They'll be leaving a probe to monitor us as we make repairs, they apparently don't want to waste time sitting here watching us," said Harry. And as if the alien ship had been waiting for his words, it launched a small ten meter long spidery looking device that just hovered beneath the ship. The vessel abruptly turned and sped away at .4 Light Speed and entered a Hyperspace window.

"Did they identify themselves?"

"Yes," nodded Harry, "they sent a small data package about themselves, including a Stargate address. They're a Confederation of worlds that make up eight hundred LY of this spiral arm we're in. They call themselves the Aschen."

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_A/N: He he he, Dr Evil pinky grin. The Aschen! Bet you didn't see that coming. I've got plans for these baddies, though Earth doesn't know they're bad yet. And what will happen to Simmons and the NID. Stay tuned for next chapter. I've updated my bio with more SG/HP universe info._


	33. Chapter 33

_**Chapter Thirty-Three – Smoke and Mirrors**_

**TSS Prometheus, High Earth Orbit**

George Hammond was generally known amongst his peers as 'the patient General'. Anyone who had Jack O'Neill as his 2IC or dealt with the generally crazy things the SGC dealt with every day would have to have the virtue in ample supply. But even his patience was wearing thin and the Bridge crew of the _Prometheus_ was being treated to the sight of the General trying to wear a hole through the deck plates by his worried pacing back and forth.

Colonel Ronson, the Master and Commander of the ship, was careful to school his face into a neutral mask from the Captain's Chair while trying his hardest to suppress his own amusement at the General's behavior. But the worry was something that was rather universal at the moment.

_Deadalus_, the sister ship of _Prometheus_ had now been MIA for almost five days since the rogue NID agents had hijacked her. The only thing that stopped Hammond from mobilizing every damn resource he had to find the wayward ship was the fact that Ambassador Potter was aboard, and would more than likely easily retake custody of the ship from Simmons. But it was also clear that everything had not gone to plan.

The bulkhead to the CIC opened and Colonels O'Neill and Pendergast stepped in.

"Nothing yet, Lionel," said Ronson automatically to his fellow starship Captain in sympathy. Colonel Lionel Pendergast threaded his fingers through his military regulation dark blonde hair in frustration, his tall, strong form stiffened momentarily and his fists clenched. Colonel Jack O'Neill frowned and after a sporting a scowl on his face turned around and headed back out of CIC.

He stopped in his tracks though as the Com Officer called for attention. "Sir! _Tranquility_ reports contact at the edge of the Solar System…" the Lieutenant pushed his earpiece deeper… "we've got IFF…it's _Deadalus_."

The Bridge crew flashed relieved grins at each other, while Ronson smiled at the guests aboard his ship.

"Sensors, what's she doing?" asked Ronson.

"Umm, burning for Earth at full sublight, sir."

"Anderson, let's meet up with her and escort back," he ordered the Helm.

"Yes sir."

_Prometheus _broke orbit and angled herself for an intercept with her sister ship.

"Com, open a channel."

"Channel open."

"_Prometheus _to _Deadalus_, come in, please."

There was a few moments of nervous silence and then over the speakers…

"_This is Ambassador Potter on the Deadalus_. _It's good to be back_."

"Hey, what took you guys so long?" snapped Jack.

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**TSS Deadalus**

"Nice to hear from you too, Jack," said Harry sarcastically, standing at the Com station. "Oh, you can tell Colonel Pendergast his ship is fine, the Hyperdrive might need a once over and a wall fixed, but other than that she's ship shape."

"_The Colonel is understandably relieved to hear that,_" said Ronson.

"Oh, and if its not too much trouble we would appreciate a solid meal transferred over here," said Harry, his stomach grumbling just from mentioning it, "we're pretty much running on empty, so to speak." He grinned at Sam.

"_Potter, this is Hammond, I want to reiterate Colonel O'Neill's question…_"

"Yes, General, in brief the reason we took so long is because well…we found what the NID were after…"

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Both ships now hovered in Earth orbit and Hammond, Jack, Teal'C and Pendergast were beamed directly into the CIC.

"Major," said Jack severely, staring at Sam as she removed the interface helmet, "you know how I get when you don't check in."

"Yes, sir," said Sam, slightly sheepishly.

"Where's Jonas?"

"Keeping Ms Donovan out of our hair, perhaps we should adjourn to the Captain's Briefing Room," suggested Harry with a smile, "then we can give a proper debriefing." The way was lead by an understandably anxious Pendergast; clearly wanting to know what his precious ship had undergone while it was out of his hands. Here Sam and Harry reported the events while munching on some Powerbars, they spoke of the hijacking and the subsequent stranding in the relative middle of nowhere, until Jonas built the Tok'ra navigation tech, and the brief First Contact with the Aschen.

"Anyway, once we'd determined our exact position we engaged on a course straight for home," said Harry. "However, an hour into the flight back I started to poke around the laptop that the NID agent used to take over _Deadalus_. Luckily, she'd left her system on and open because it had some pretty hefty security. In it were their original course and after a lot of searching I found in a hidden file a hi-res picture of the tablet describing the hidden Alteran technology cache. One of the first things I noticed was that they had mistranslated the co-ordinates, clearly whoever they got for linguists didn't have a good idea about which dialect of Alteran they were dealing with."

"But you could read it," stated Hammond.

"Yes," nodded Harry. "The coordinates led to this system here…" he picked up a remote and pointed to the main display screen which was showing the Milky Way, a blue dot lit up about a thousand light years along the Orion arm of the galaxy. "…and as it so happened it wasn't too much out of our way back to Earth."

"Of course, there was no food on board, so I looked for a suitable planet along our course…we found one, but it didn't help much since it was uninhabited and we didn't feel safe eating the native fruits, we did get water out of it though."

"So you went to the cache," said Jack shrewdly, "wouldn't it have been better to come back to Earth get a few more people, supplies, and then go back and check it out."

"The Ambassador felt that we couldn't afford to wait," said Sam looking uncomfortable. "He convinced me that in the time it would take to organize a mission there, that the NID would try to at the very least infiltrate an operative to in his words 'mess the whole bloody thing up'."

"Valid point," conceded Jack.

"Hey, they had all the command codes to _Deadalus_, thanks to Simmons," said Harry in irritation, "what's to say they couldn't pull another stunt like this. I mean they effectively stole an important strategic asset vital to Earth's defense. I wouldn't at all be surprised if the President hasn't ordered the FBI to storm NID headquarters and arrest all of them already."

"He came this close," said Jack, holding his thumb and forefinger in a 'small' gesture. "But that still wouldn't get us the true architects behind the scenes, which would have to happen before we bring the hammer down."

"You brought him into the plan, General?" said Harry, with raised eyebrow.

"I think he could be useful," said Hammond. "I'll explain later."

"All right," said Harry. "Anyway, we proceeded to the cache, it was very cleverly hidden in the main asteroid belt of the Solar System in question. It had stealth, cloaking, energy dampening the works, you could've spent your entire life searching the place and you wouldn't have found it…unless you happen to be an Alteran, or descended from them."

"What do you mean?" asked Pendergast.

"I mean that the moment that we entered proximity of the cache, that the interior systems must have detected my presence and revealed itself to our sensors," said Harry. "It was located inside a hollowed out asteroid."

"What did you find?" said Jack, an eager light in his eyes. "Tell me we got some big honkin space guns."

"Not exactly, Jack."

"Aww," he mock pouted. Teal'C raised an eyebrow at Jack's antics.

"But it was nevertheless definitely worth it," said Harry with a grin.

8888888888888888888888888888

**TSS Deadalus, Cargo Bay 1**

As the group walked through the bowels of the ship, Pendergast brought up the subject of the NID agents that had hijacked his ship.

"They are safely imprisoned in the Brig, one we've had to keep unconscious because he has telekinetic powers."

"What will become of them?" asked Teal'C.

"Oh, that will be up to the STO Council to decide, I suppose," said Harry absently. "Until they can be convened I think it would be best if they get transferred to _Tranquility_'s lockup, so the NID can't reach them. As for the telekinetic guy, I can put in a call to the Descendants, they'll keep him safely secured."

They stopped next to the large doors of the main cargo bay, which automatically parted at their approach. The sight beyond was enough to astonish and shock the newcomers.

"Wow," said Jack.

Lining the left side of the cargo bay were racks upon racks of metallic shelves filled with squid-like looking devices. To the right were elegant looking square cargo boxes that were piled all the way up to the ceiling

"On the left," said Harry, "is the Alteran's main ship to ship weapon. A simple word for them in English is 'Drones', but they're more of a guided missile, their range and effective power is dependant on the energy source of the ship firing them. Area 51 can study some of them, but they can only be fired from an Alteran ship, so they'll be pretty much useless for the _Prometheus_ and the like. But the _Achilles_ can sure use them."

"And the boxes?" asked Jack.

"Well, I haven't really had a chance to look through everything yet thoroughly," said Harry excitedly, "just gave them a once over. But…take a look." He walked over to the nearest box, which stood at hip height off the floor and was about a meter long, by half a meter wide. He caressed a hand over a series of small blue squares on the side; it immediately opened itself with a hiss. The lid stopped in line with the sides and everyone stared down in it rather incredulously.

"Carter," said Jack, blinking. "Is it just me, or is there an entire _room_ of gadgets in there?"

"It's not just you, Sir," said Sam with an awed grin. "These boxes obviously use a form of dimensional spatial engineering to actually be bigger on the inside, than they could be on the outside."

"Obviously," said Jack wryly. Harry shook his head and quickly climbed in the box and brought out one of the devices that were stored inside. It was a hand held device, with a thick golden handle, and a square glass crystal blade that protruded half a foot from the hilt. "A lightsaber?" ventured Jack with a grin.

"No Jack," said Harry, rolling his eyes. After a bit of concentration the device lit up with a blue glow. "This is…well…an Alteran hand weapon of sorts. On its current setting it will stun you quite effectively, this is the default setting." He concentrated and this time the weapon turned to a dark green color. "Now it will kill." Another concentration, the device turned gold. "Now…" he turned to point the device toward a nearby box and after a brief flare, the box hovered itself off the floor. "It basically acts as a capacitor for the 'powers' of the wielder, preventing you from tiring as quickly." He hovered the box back to the floor and turned the device to its original setting. "It requires considerable training to use in the manner I just did. To you it would just be another Zat gun, until you get training at least."

"Impressive," said Hammond.

"Yes, well, a lot of the stuff in here can only be used or initialized by an Alteran so some of it will be useful and practical to Area 51 for research, others won't because it would take a few more centuries for Earth to develop to a point where we could reverse engineer it ourselves."

"I'll order a science team from A51 to assist you Ambassador," nodded Hammond, "Colonel, I'm sure you'd like to get your ship back in the barn."

"Yes, sir," nodded Pendergast.

"Major Carter…"

"Yes sir, I'll take the Helm."

"Lets get cracking people."

88888888888888888888888888

**Seaworld **

He poked his head into the doorway of the many labs that filled the underwater complex to find a rather amusing scene. Aiyana and Apollonia were both standing in front of a wide curving control terminal of typical Asgard design but reconfigured to use Alteran characters and numbers. Ahead of it was a large display screen, which was currently displaying a number of time spatial equations and blueprints. They were arguing in rapid Alteran and occasionally gesticulating to the screen. What made it amusing and a true sight was the fact that both women had seemingly just come from sunning themselves on the beach; meaning that all they had on was a sarongs tied around their hips and slippers. To the right at another control station was the Asgard Kvasir and Heimdall watching the spectacle with quirks of their small mouths and blinking their large black eyes rapidly…in Asgard body language that meant they were going through the Terran equivalent of visibly restraining themselves from laughing…though an Asgard would never laugh, or at least, what Terrans would know as such.

He sneaked in quietly and sidled up to the two Asgard, knowing that they would've surely noticed his approach already.

"Hey…what's going on?" he whispered.

"Your wife is considering introducing some…improvements in the construction of Alteran Power Modules, based on high energy physics principles perfected over the last few thousand years by the Asgard which were developed and improved from the portions of the Alteran database," said Kvasir in a low pitch, or what an Asgard would consider a whisper.

"Ah, let me guess, Aiyana thinks otherwise," said Harry.

"Indeed," said Heimdall.

They watched the argument for another half a minute before he decided to intervene. He stepped forward abruptly between the two women, who gave a start of surprise at his sudden appearance. He automatically hugged and kissed his wife, and merely gave a hug to Aiyana, but held onto both women loosely around the shoulders.

"Ladies…" he said remonstratively. "While I admit the entertainment is fascinating…" both women glared at him, "you are both arguing in circles. Now, from what little I heard and can see displayed on the screen I think your problem is more about philosophy. Do we stick with what is tried and tested and we know works?" he glanced at Aiyana, "or do we seek to improve and make better what we already have?" now turning to his wife.

"My argument is more practical," said Aiyana eventually into the thoughtful silence after his statement, "if we encounter Alteran outposts and facilities that require the Modules they won't be able to accept the new ones your wife are proposing to manufacture."

"Valid point," stated Harry.

"The Module technology has been used since Aiyana's time, that's over five million years," said Apollonia. "If we don't grow and improve we become stagnant and die, that's a simple natural concept of life and evolution. Sooner or later, we're going to meet a threat…" she glanced significantly at Harry, clearly referring to his brief jaunt into the future, "…that will be greater than what we've experienced before. What is that Terran saying, my husband, 'There's always a bigger fish…'"

"Yes," he nodded.

"Then why not do both," said Kvasir, tilting his head. "If your worry, Aiyana, is about compatibility with existing facilities, then retain the external characteristics of the Modules, whilst still improving the internal area of space-time."

"Utilizing energy from a Module is a delicate very precise process, my other concern is that the systems drawing power from such an improved Module will not be properly calibrated and you'll end up destroying the Solar System you happen to be in."

"Then we calibrate them beforehand," said Apollonia simply.

"It would take months, if it was an Outpost, a city-ship would take decades of careful calibration work," said Aiyana dryly.

"Ok, ok," said Harry raising his hands. "Then that means we'll build the good ol' Modules for the old stuff, and upgraded Modules for the new. I'm sure the _Achilles,_ _Briseus _and _Artemis_ can be retuned to accept the new Modules in…mmm…two months, maybe three. That'll free up their respective Modules once the new ones are built. An speaking of which, I've brought something that will help."

"What is it?" asked Apollonia, interested.

"Follow me."

A few minutes later found, Harry, Apollonia, Aiyana, and the two Asgard standing in a formerly empty lab. Well, it seemed empty at first glance. In the middle of the room, an ornately crafted obsidian black pedestal, with a two-foot large table area integrated on top, on the left wall, was a square organic looking device, also in obsidian, with a small circular transparent surface in the middle. It was mounted at head height, and two smaller devices roughly half a meter below.

"This won't be familiar to you Aiyana, as they were invented after you were…frozen," he said, and walked over to the wall-mounted device. "This is an Alteran Assembler." He stepped forward and abruptly the Assembler lurched forward and almost seemed to grow itself into a new mold that covered the upper half of Harry's face. The two smaller devices also grew out and began to glow blue, his hands grabbing them and starting to vaguely twitch.

The lights in the room dimmed and abruptly above the obsidian pedestal numerous complex representations of holographic parts began to float in mid-air over it.

"What you are seeing now, is the basic components of a PR7," announced Harry to the room. "Now…" his hands began to twitch faster and suddenly the holographic parts began to assemble themselves and not a minute later a holographic PR7 hovered in the air, only to land on the table…there was a white flash of light and right there was a brand new PR7 lying on the table. There was another flash, and it dematerialized. Now new, much more numerous holographic parts began to hover in the air.

The Assembler abruptly lurched away from Harry and retracted into the wall.

"The parts for a Power Module," said Apollonia, pointing at the hovering components.

"Yes, however, I merely know of them, I can't put them together, that's where you come in."

"This is excellent, this will surely cut down on production time for a single Module," said Aiyana. "During the time of the Plague it took us half a year to do just one."

"It's been improved on a lot over time," said Harry with a grin. "With this, and the right materials…three weeks?"

"Two," rejoined Apollonia with a smug smile.

8888888888888888888888

**SGC, Earth**

'…_the scene in Los Angeles today was scorching as a man with the ability of controlled fire or Pyrokinesis, went on a rampage in a local mall. Reportedly he had been going through a rather vicious divorce case in court…city fire officials report that the mall suffered extensive burn damage and minor structure damage…no casualties although many had been brought to the ER for smoke inhalation….'_

'…_this is the latest in a string of near disastrous metaphysical incidents across the country and abroad. Government officials and the Delphi Academy have a released a statement urging everyone to keep a tight reign on their own emotions and avoid situations where you may become easily enraged. An internationally published journal will be available in a variety of media on basic mental techniques on how to control the various common abilities yet discovered within the next week…'_

'…_and to repeat our major news item today…Senator Kinsey's assassination has sent shock waves through Washington. With his party's national convention just weeks away, the Senator was considered by many within his party to be a contender for the second spot on the presidential ticket…_'

Harry watched the plasma screen with a grim frown. Sam, Jonas and Teal'C were also congregated in Jonas' Lab, looking at the screen with more neutral faces. The assassination of the Senator was troubling…the man had been neck deep with the NID…who would stand to gain from his death?

Before he could carry these thoughts further into how this affected the President's plan to bring down the NID, Jack stepped into the room still dressed in his civilian clothing with sunglasses hanging from his neck.

"Hey!" greeted the Colonel, and Sam hit the 'mute' button the plasma. "I'm back. What did I miss?"

"Sir, Senator Kinsey is dead. He was shot," explained Sam with a sigh.

"What?" said Jack, blinking after a stunned silence. He glanced at Harry, who merely tilted his head and nodded.

"Yeah, it's been all over the news for three days," said Jonas.

"I've been on vacation," pointed out Jack.

"It looks like it was a professional hit. The shooter took him out from a hotel room across the street and then just disappeared," explained Sam further.

"Any suspects?" asked Jack with raised eyebrows.

"The police have been very quiet about it," said Harry thoughtfully.

"It is reasonable to assume that a man in Senator Kinsey's position would have a great many enemies," said Teal'C with a raised eyebrow.

Jack shrugged and nodded, and at this point more worrying company entered the room. General Hammond looking troubled yet resolute was accompanied by two rather severe SFs.

"Colonel."

"General…" said Jack standing automatically and appraising the SFs.

"I'm sorry to have to do this," said Hammond, "but these men are here to escort you to Peterson. From there you'll be flown to Andrews and then turned over to the civilian authorities in Washington."

"Sir, what is this?" asked Sam carefully and yet intently.

"Colonel O'Neill is under arrest for the murder of Senator Kinsey."

"What?" snapped Jack, his eyes flashing in brief anger.

"You'll have to come with us, sir," said one of the SFs.

"I don't think so," said Jack with dangerous eyes.

"Colonel…" said Hammond trying reason.

"General, I've been on vacation," insisted Jack.

"I believe you Jack," said the General, his tone softening, "but for the moment, we're going to have to cooperate."

88888888888888888888888888

**SGC, Briefing Room 1**

Sam, Jonas, Teal'C, General Hammond and Harry sat around the large table staring at a rather harried looking Major Davis, the SGC Pentagon liaison, who was staring down at the files which had the preliminary findings of the investigation into the assassination.

"There's no way Colonel O'Neill could have done this," said Sam strongly.

"I'm aware of that Major," said Hammond shaking his head, "my hands are tied."

"Major Davis, if you would please enlighten us as to how the Colonel was framed?" asked Harry lightly. If there was one thing he knew, then it was that Jack was many things; he was a Black Ops soldier, a former father and husband, had a code of honor that he didn't break for anything. Assassinating a US Senator was way off the books for him.

"If it was a frame, it's very convincing by looking at this file," said Major Davis. "It actually looks like the Colonel was in Washington after all. This was taken from a security camera in a hotel across the street from where the shooting occurred, just a couple of minutes after it happened." He thumbed a remote and the viewscreen changed to show footage of Jack in khaki pants and black shirt walking down a staircase with a determined stride. "Now, the trajectory of the bullet indicates that the shot did, in fact, come from this hotel."

"That's doesn't prove anything," countered Jonas.

"No, but based on this evidence, the FBI attained search warrants to search both the Colonel's house and his cabin. They didn't find anything but one of the neighbors told them that they saw Colonel O'Neill dumping something down by the lake. They sent down a diver who...came up with this."

The screen changed again to show an impressive looking matt black sniper rifle that was disassembled in two large parts. "Ballistics matches it with the bullet that killed Senator Kinsey. Well, I don't know what else to say, sir. It's certainly no secret that there was bad blood between them."

"Oh, come on…they've had a few run-ins. That's hardly a motive for murder," argued Sam.

"Okay, I've read the file on Kinsey," said Jonas with a frown. "But it's a little vague."

"Purposefully so, Jonas," said Harry with a raised eyebrows. "Kinsey was associated with the NID, and we don't want what we really know about the man to be recorded in the SGC archives, since it's also available to our 'political' enemies, so to speak. Anyway, the NID and their backers were unhappy with the way the SGC was being run…this was before the STO was formed."

"They tried to blackmail General Hammond into resigning," said Sam. "Colonel O'Neill and the Ambassador found evidence connecting Kinsey to their illegal activities and they threatened to go public with it unless the Senator got them to back off."

"So that's how you have the NID database…" said Jonas looking at Harry with a grin. "But, that means, technically, Kinsey was protecting the SGC."

"True, but I don't think he was very happy about it," said Sam.

"Still, that's not a motive to kill the guy, that's a motive to keep him alive," argued Jonas.

"Yes, but it does give the NID backers motive to remove Kinsey from the picture and Colonel O'Neill in the same move," posited Harry.

"And what about you?"

"My Ambassadorial status protects me, and if they did make the mistake of trying they wouldn't last long," said Harry with an evil grin.

"It is unfortunate then, that we cannot reveal this to the civilian authorities," grumbled Teal'C.

"Senator Kinsey was shot in broad daylight on a public street in front of a dozen civilian witnesses. If we tried to shift this to a military court, it would be a political disaster for the current administration," said Hammond.

"With all due respect, Sir, the current administration owes a lot to the Colonel," said Sam pointedly.

"I'm aware of that, Major, as is the President. Unfortunately, there's nothing he can do for Colonel O'Neill at this time. On the other hand, I'm not a politician. Which is why I'm suspending SG-1's off-world duties and assigning the three of you and Ambassador Potter to get to the bottom of this. You have the full resources of this command at your disposal."

"Thank you, Sir," said Sam gratefully.

After the General had dismissed the briefing Harry sidled up to Sam as they walked out into the main corridor.

"This is an opportunity," he said.

"I know," said Sam. "The backers have made their move. But in so doing they've given us the opportunity to finally investigate them aggressively and expose them."

"So what's your plan?"

"I think Teal'C and Jonas should go and speak to the Colonel, see what he has to say, off the record," said Sam thoughtfully. "There is a remote possibility that this could've been an off the books mission."

"I highly doubt that, but we can't leave any possibility untouched," agreed Harry. "And?"

"You and I are going to analyze that video, see if maybe it hasn't been doctored."

"There's a few mathematical algorhythms that should work nicely."

"Then let's get cracking."

The next day they scheduled another meeting with Hammond to report their own preliminary findings and what Jack had to say.

"He's holding up well," said Jonas, "but he's clearly perturbed by the whole situation. Normally I would never see it, but since I've blended with Kanan I picked up on the little things."

"I've also come to the conclusion that those responsible chose to act now and used Colonel O'Neill's vacation and his known fondness for solitude to leave him with no alibi," rumbled Teal'C, his jaw flexing was the only outward clue what the Jaffa thought about it.

"The Ambassador and I thoroughly analyzed the video tape to see if it had been doctored, but it's appears genuine," reported Sam.

"So, either that is Colonel O'Neill," said Jonas, pointing to the viewscreen which showed the picture of the Colonel in the tape, "or someone who looks exactly like him."

"We have encountered duplicating technology before," said Teal'C his eyes glancing towards Harry.

"Oi, I was on Seaworld still when this happened," denied Harry indignantly, "you can Gate over right now and ask any of the Asgard stationed there, my wife, and Aiyana, you could even ask my children at this point."

"Ambassador, you may have the technology, but I think Teal'C was referring to another occasion as well," said Sam with a grin at the mention of the Ambassador's kids. "Those mimic devices are under heavy guard though."

"What mimic devices?" asked Harry in confusion, Jonas blinked in incomprehension as well. General Hammond and Sam exchanged significant glances in a bout of silent communication and then the older man eventually spoke up with a resigned sigh.

"Three years ago we had a foothold situation here at the SGC. Aliens gained control by using mimic devices to impersonate and replace base personnel, including myself."

"Why have the Ambassador and I not heard about this before?" asked Jonas with a frown.

"Because of the seriousness of the breach, a decision was made to erase all mention of the incident from all records," said Hammond.

"Wow," said Harry in appreciation, "you must've gone through a lot of effort to do so."

"Quite," said Hammond wearily.

"But where are the devices now?" asked Jonas.

"Area 51."

Harry dressed in what he now privately termed his 'MIB' clothes with his ever-present chromesuit underneath stepped into one of the many main secure storage facilities in the underground labs at Area 51. Sam was with him, dressed in her formal Air force blues and a light brown skinned woman was escorting them, she in turn was dressed in semi casual clothes over a white lab coat.

This particular scientist's name was Adrika, and was in fact a student of Harry's.

"How many do you have?" asked Sam.

"We recovered twelve from the SGC, they're all stored here," answered Adrika, as she placed her palm on a scanner pedestal built in front of the hi-tech storage drawers, which were being guarded by a security force field. The field shut down after recognizing the scientist's authority and then pressed her thumb to another smaller scanner embedded into each drawer, which slid open by itself with a tiny hydraulic hiss. Inside Harry got his first look at the devices; they looked remarkably like a four-inch wide seashell at first glance, but the colors and artificiality of it meant it was not created by Nature.

"Has anyone been studying them recently?" asked Sam.

"We've all been focusing on the Cruiser project," said the scientist. "There we go, all present and accounted for."

Sam wasn't satisfied and reached toward the nearest one and picked it up, her face twisted into an upset frown as she declared, "they're fake."

"What?" said Adrika in alarm, rushing forward to grab another mimic device from the drawer. She also drew the same conclusion a moment later. "They're too light…this is just a plastic replica."

"_Nihilum!_" swore Harry in Alteran. "Is nothing safe from these _fatuus_!"

"It seems not," said Sam wryly.

**Jonas' Lab, SGC, Earth**

"How do these things work?" asked Jonas curiously, staring at the 'duplicate' mimic device in the light of a bright lamp on his desk, while Harry peered curiously over his shoulder.

"Well, it's a two part process," explained Sam. "First you take somebody, and then pass them through a large scanning device which then uploads their exact image into a holographic sequencer."

"Which…looks like this," said Jonas pointing at the mimic device.

"Exactly, then you place that sequencer somewhere on you body and activate it, and you instantly take on the appearance of the person you scanned."

"Was the scanning device taken?" asked Teal'C.

"No, it's still at Area 51, we checked it out, they're also doing a sweep for any other items that may have been stolen and duplicated in a similar manner."

"Therefore, they can only impersonate a small number of people," concluded Harry.

"Yes, twelve to be precise," said Sam. "including Colonel O'Neill, Dr Frasier and Daniel."

"What about General Hammond?" asked Jonas, raising an eyebrow.

"The alien impersonating him was trapped in the 'gate room along with several others. They activated some kind of self-destruct and blew themselves up. In case you're wondering, Teal'c and I were never scanned."

"That's good to know," said Jonas, looking slightly relieved.

"I've requested the personnel files on everyone who had access to these devices. I'd like you and Teal'C to check them out."

"What about you and the Ambassador?"

"We're going to be meeting a recent acquaintance of mine at the FBI when I assisted them in the background for the Counter-Intel Op we've got going against the Goa'uld at the moment," explained Harry.

"Working with him we're hoping to get a bead on the real assassin."

**Washington DC, USA, Earth**

The looming powerful symbol of the Washington Monument towered overhead. This was the closest that Harry had ever been to the gleaming white structure that was erected to honor George Washington. The structure was impressive, standing at over five hundred and fifty feet composed of white marble that was underlain by granite; the whole thing reinforced with interior ironwork. It was a far cry from Alteran architecture, but it was excellent work for its time.

The park around the monument looked like someone had thrown a perfect green blanket of grass around it, the amount of maintenance that went into it was also impressive. He and Sam, still dressed formally, walked towards a specific park bench that faced towards that massive spike in the sky.

On it was another formally suited figure, reading a newspaper. Harry could tell that however engrossed the man seemed to be in the news that he constantly kept cognizance of his surroundings. He knew they were there and both Harry and Sam sat down casually on the bench as well. There was a beep of sound, and they saw that the man had taken his cellphone and placed it on the chair next to him…its outer screen was now blinking in a distinct pattern. _Ah…anti-listening device…it probably scrambled the sound reception in the area around them for the folks using directional microphones._

"Ambassador Potter," acknowledged the man, turning a page of his newspaper.

"Special Agent O'Day," said Harry in turn. "I would like you to meet Major Carter."

"Pleasure," said O'Day shortly and lowered his newspaper briefly. This allowed Sam her first glance at the man, he was tall, but slender, he had the build of a track runner. His face was rather pointed and angular, his gray-blue eyes squinting slightly in the overhead sun as he casually scanned the area around them.

"I'm sorry for being in a bit of hurry," said Sam after a few moments of silence, "but why are we here and not meeting you at the Hoover Building."

"Because I'd rather our conversation be kept from the NID," said O'Day coolly. "We sweep for bugs and listening devices a lot, but if there's one thing I've learned is that nothing is truly secure. _Deadalus _certainly proved that."

"Quite," breathed Sam.

"So what do you hope to achieve beyond what the FBI has already gotten?" said O'Day, the newspaper returned to its former position of covering his face.

Harry kept it brief, but explained the SGCs deductions regarding the evidence against the Colonel O'Neill. It was tricky but Harry managed to dodge around the whole 'Foothold' incident, explaining that it must be tech that the illegal offworld NID operation had gathered before they were shut down.

"You believe the NID has access to this mimic technology?" asked O'Day thoughtfully.

"Yes, but the disguises it can produce don't last long, four to five minutes at most, they've been having trouble mastering the technology," said Sam.

"Ah, so the 'assassin' used it to 'pose' for the cameras in the stairwell."

"Yes," nodded Harry, "and it wouldn't be hard to simply dump the same weapon used into the lake near the Colonel's cabin. Again the assassin used the mimic to appear as the Colonel for the neighbors."

"That's all we need," said O'Day, sighing wearily and shaking his head. "Do you know how much of a nightmare, tech such as this would pose to investigators if it actually entered criminal hands?" The man shuddered just thinking about it. "So I assume you want my help to find the real assassin, then?"

"Indeed," nodded Harry.

"We also think that the assassin could also lead us to the private backers who've effectively hijacked the NID for their own purposes," said Sam.

"I see," nodded O'Day. "Well, if there's one guy in this town who would love to see the NID rot in the annuls of history then it's me."

"Why do you think I chose you?" asked Harry with a raised eyebrow. O'Day shrugged his eyes growing hard.

"Umm…I hate to ask…" said Sam, glancing between Harry and O'Day.

"It's best not mentioned," interceded Harry with a raised hand.

"None of that, Ambassador," said O'Day, shaking his head, 'if we're going to be bringing down the NID once and for all, then I think there can be no misunderstandings between us. My motivation Major Carter, is simple. My family was in Steveston."

"Oh," said Sam her face falling. There was not much more that needed to be said.

**Industrial District, Washington DC**

The three of them sat in the rental car, whilst O'Day drove, seeing as how this was his backyard. The car turned a corner and sped past a group of factories and warehouses before turning another. The Ford sedan soon stopped at a gate beyond which was an abandoned looking warehouse. O'Day pulled down his window and merely nodded at the surveillance camera pointing towards them. It looked broken as well, but only to a casual observer, looking carefully Harry saw the iris of the lens contract as it focused on them.

The gate opened by itself and allowed their entrance. They parked near the service-loading ramp and got out.

"What is this place?" asked Sam, she was out of her uniform blues now and into similar civilian formal suit attire as her two companions.

"The rifle used to kill Senator Kinsey was not the kind of thing you could pick up at your local sporting goods store. This is a one-stop shop for unregistered weapons. High-end merchandise, professional clientele. There's a good chance our shooter was here," explained O'Day.

"If you know they're selling illegal guns, why don't you shut them down?" asked Sam pointedly.

"I allow them to operate in exchange for information," said O'Day coolly, "stopping them will merely push them deeper into the underworld. And it's not them pulling the trigger." They walked up to a side door next to the loading bay where another camera was watching, O'Day waved at it and a moment later the door opened to reveal a big, burly dark skinned man with a manner that screamed 'bodyguard'.

"Leo," nodded the FBI agent to the bodyguard, who merely nodded back and allowed all three of them entrance into the warehouse.

The warehouse itself was large, open, concrete construction with numerous heavy shelves and brackets housing a veritable arsenal of modern and custom weaponry, P90s, Uzis, HKs, FNs, each major manufacturer of arms on the planet was represented. They approached a desk in the middle of the warehouse looking rather out of place with its elegant mahogany design. Clustered around it were several more bodyguards who looked like they ate barbells for dinner, and Harry idly wondered if they could even give him and Teal'C a run for their money in a physical brawl. It was also clear that these men had clearly benefited from the Great Leap; as one was idly bending what looked like a length of iron before bending it back into its original shape, clearly there were only Terrans in this room.

The man seemingly in charge of the gun runners stood from behind the desk. He was rather small in comparison to his bodyguards and had cocky look about him, he smiled at O'Day and revealed that every tooth in his mouth had gold crowns. Harry raised an eyebrow in astonishment at the sight of the glittering teeth. The gun lord turned to Sam and his eyes took an appreciative glint, then assessing Harry rather warily.

"Agent O'Day," said the gun lord. "Who're your friends?"

"Major Samantha Carter, United States Air Force," said Sam.

"Air Commodore Harry Potter, Royal Air Force," said Harry smoothly, ignoring Sam's start of surprise.

"A Brit, eh?" said the gun lord, "strange company you keep O'Day."

"We can talk in front of them," assured the Special Agent.

The gun lord frowned for a moment and then seemed to accept it. "What can I do for you?"

"We want to know about a seven hundred with a customized breakdown stock," stated O'Day.

"Yeah?" said the gun lord in surprise, "I moved one last week."

"Well, in all likelihood, it was used to assassinate a United States Senator," said Sam.

"What's your point?" asked the gun lord flatly, clearly not that much concerned about the morality of his business.

"Was the buyer a regular customer?" asked O'Day.

"No, I'd never seen him before."

"Is this the guy?" O'Day handed the man a picture of Jack taken from the surveillance camera.

"That's the guy," confirmed the gun lord.

"Did he look at any other weapons besides the seven hundred?" asked Harry thoughtfully.

"Yeah, as a matter of fact, he did." He gestured to Leo and the bodyguard disappeared into the shelves of weapons and a few moments later came back with another weapon. "A sound-suppressed revolver rifle."

"Did he handle it?"

"Sure."

"Was he wearing gloves?"

"No."

"Has anybody handled it since?" asked O'Day, seeing where Harry was going with this.

"No, just Leo here."

"How much?" asked Sam with a grin.

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**Bloomingdale Inn, Washington DC.**

Harry and Sam returned to their two rented rooms in the hotel they had decided to overnight in for the duration of their investigation. O'Day accompanied them in and immediately got busy dusting the rifle for prints.

"Air Commodore?" said Sam in amusement, as she took of her jacket. "When did that happen?"

"Well," shrugged Harry uncomfortably, "I'm still technically a citizen of the UK, Sam. Grew up there the first eleven years of my life. Alien abduction doesn't change that. So a week or so after Disclosure, I was summoned to Downing Street with the President as intermediary. I had a very long and delightful chat with Prime Minister Blair. Not the least of which included him asking me everything I've done in defense of Earth…and humanity out there,"

"…which is a lot," said Sam nodding.

"Yeah, so its not a few hours later when he brings in the Marshal of the Royal Air Force himself, and they give me a commission on the spot, I even have the uniform," he chuckled ruefully. "Not that I've ever worn it."

"They probably feel like they need to stake a claim to you, or at least give you some real authority in terms of the military," said Sam thoughtfully. "And you outrank me now, damn. Air Commodore has the same level as a full bird Colonel."

"Done," declared O'Day, standing at the nearby table, where a laptop now had the fingerprints found on the rifle prominently displayed on the screen. Harry and Sam walked over to take a look. "There's one set of full prints and one partial on the second rifle, neither of which match Colonel O'Neill."

"Assuming the full set matches our friend Leo," said Sam, "then the partial must belong to the real assassin."

"Ok," conceded O'Day, "but finding a name to go with this partial is going to be difficult. This assassin will not be in any database except maybe, for the NID, which they sure are not going to give us access to."

"No problem," said Harry, and produced an Asgard Jewel device and placed it on top of the laptop surface…it glowed for a brief moment. "You'll find a new drive accessible from the OS. Run a search against the database inside it."

O'Day stared at the strange device in amazement for a moment but went ahead anyway with what Harry suggested. Since this was only a laptop the search took much longer than normal but eventually a match was found.

"Well, what do you know," said O'Day, after the computer finished. "The prints belong to a NID agent named Mark Devlin."

"Does it have a current address?"

"Yes, and in DC, not a surprise," said O'Day.

"Let's pay Mr Devlin a visit shall we."

They were back in the car and went through a McDonalds Drive thru for lunch on the way to Devlin's house, when Sam's phone rang.

"Carter…Teal'C and Jonas found something…ok…yeah, we made an ID for the real shooter, NID agent Mark Devlin…yes, we're on the way to him right now…we will be…thank you, sir." She snapped the phone shut. "That was General Hammond, they've got a lead on a scientist at Area 51 whose death was faked. He worked on the mimic device project. Jonas and Teal'C are gonna try and apprehend him."

"Speaking as an FBI agent, I did not hear you say that," said O'Day, as he munched on a burger.

"Your discretion is appreciated, Agent O'Day," said Harry gratefully.

"I realize that these guys act above the law, therefore we can't operate within the minor red tape of procedure and jurisdiction, if we want any hope of catching them."

The drive towards Devlin's house was resumed and due to the heavy traffic of lunch hour it took them half an hour to reach an outer suburb of Washington DC. When they did finally drive past the street that Devlin lived on they kept driving and pulled to a stop two streets away.

"Ok, this guy's a professional assassin, former Delta Force, we've only got one chance to nab him and that's it, we screw up he's a ghost," said O'Day grimly.

"He'll be on his guard, since his op was so recently," opinioned Sam.

"But we'll have surprise on our side, and not to sound conceited, it would take someone of considerable metaphysical skill to hoodwink or overpower me," said Harry.

"Well, we first have to know if he's at home at all, we can't just go up to his front door and knock," said O'Day.

"I think we can," said Harry with a grin, and pointed towards a nearby house where a teenage boy stopped his bicycle laden with papers and was walking up to the front door of a house with a clipboard.

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Mark Devlin was a cautious and paranoid man by nature and profession. He had the look of an 'everyman' but it was his eyes that betrayed his history, an intense, dark coldness seemed to swirl in them to anyone who was perceptive to such things. His house portrayed the mask he had adopted, that of a typical Washington businessman who was a bachelor, the house also bore the subtle signs of his profession, the hidden weapons, the strand of hair he left behind on the door jamb to indicate if it had been opened whilst he wasn't there, all the hidden tools of the spy and assassins trade.

He contemplated his latest job for the Committee, and reflected that he must have fulfilled quite a few fantasies with the killing of Kinsey, the man had made quite a few enemies and pissed off a lot of people to get to where he was…in hindsight, which politician didn't. But what he did do, and which punched his ticket was keeping the Committee from gaining control at SGC. It was originally thought that he did so because his spot on the Senate Oversight Intelligence would make a more overt grab for the SGC unnecessary. But then the STO had been formed and now every major government on the planet had their claws into the SGC…which Kinsey should've stopped…but didn't…and the reason became known to the Committee…he had become a liability.

A beep in his pocket, brought him out of his chair and into his study…the motion detectors had been set off. He walked to his computer and punched up the miniature camera feeds covering the disturbance area…ah…it was the paperboy carrying a clipboard.

Devlin rolled his eyes, and looked at the calendar…sure enough it was collection day. He walked over to his suit jacket and pulled out his wallet. The doorbell rang and a few moments later he opened it partially.

"Mr Devlin?"

"Hello Kevin," said Devlin with a mask of the genial face he presented to everyone in his neighborhood. The boy raised the clipboard to hand it to him. This required that he open the door wider, which he did automatically without thought. It was only years of ingrained instinct and training that saved him in the next moment. It was the tension, and stance of the kid that was all wrong.

This meant that there was a split second difference when he had backed away from the door slightly when the kid seemed to blur with movement and kick the door off its hinges and it shot towards him. His reflexes and the distance he covered when he moved back meant he could raise his arms to deflect the door slightly and prevent it from smashing into his face. But nevertheless nothing could stop the physics behind the move as he pushed back on his heels and in danger of falling backwards.

The door crashing into the floor covered the sounds of desperate fighting that followed a moment later. Devlin deflected a strike from the kid at his chest, but failed to catch the offending limb as it pulled back before he could grab a hold. He had to fend off no less than three attacks next, a low strike followed immediately with an elbow strike, plus a shin kick.

The first two he managed to deflect again, but the kick came too damn fast. The sheer force of it was enough to send his one leg crashing into his other, and the sharp pain enough to convince him he had cracked a bone.

The next thing he saw was the 'kid' gesturing with a flat palm towards his face…there was a flash of red…then nothing…

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The disguise of the paperboy melted away and Harry stared down at the assassin with a hint of respect, the man's reflexes and fighting was top notch, if he had also been trained metaphysically it would've been one hell of a fight, that would probably have turned the house into kindling.

Sam and O'Day entered the house with weapons drawn and after a sweep declared the house clear, though Sam did find an IED (Improvised Explosive Device) in the kitchen that Devlin probably kept for if he had to bug out and leave no evidence in his wake, luckily, it wasn't armed.

Harry and O'Day meanwhile got busy with the task of thoroughly searching the unconscious body of Devlin; the results proved the man was a consummate assassin and left nothing to chance, hidden throwing knives, lockpicks and even a few subdermal implements that they could feel through the skin of arms and legs…Harry wouldn't even be surprised if the man had stuff hidden up his ass.

"Let's get him out of here," said O'Day with a worried frown, "there's a chance the neighbors might've heard the ruckus."

"Carter to Prometheus Actual," said Sam into a hand held subspace communicator.

"_Prometheus Actual here. Go ahead._" She knelt next to Devlin and placed a special signal tag on him.

"Lock on to the tag signal at my location and beam him directly into the Brig," she instructed.

"_Got it, Major, stand by._"

There was a ringing sound and a white flash of light and the assassin vanished.

"_We've got him Major,_" confirmed Ronson.

"Recommend you do a full security and medical workup."

"_Very well. We'll begin to prep for an interrogation as well, Prometheus out._"

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**Bloomingdale Inn, Washington DC**

The three of them were back at the hotel room waiting and it was well into the evening. It was now just a matter of waiting to see who would crack first, the assassin on _Prometheus_ or the scientist responsible for the theft of the mimic devices, who had been apprehended by Teal'C and Jonas and was now sitting rather uncomfortably in an interview room.

It was obvious the scientist would see reason, especially when they listened to the transcript of his interview, which had been encrypted and sent to their laptop.

"_When you switched the devices with the fakes, where'd you take them?" asked Jonas._

"_Washington," answered the very much alive Dr Langham, who had worked on the mimic project. "They wanted me to take them myself because they thought using a middleman would be too risky."_

"_To whom are you referring?" asked Teal'C._

"_They call themselves the Committee, they run the whole show," answered Langham._

"_We're going to need names," stated Hammond sternly, "you're looking at conspiracy to commit murder."_

"_I didn't know they were going to use the devices to kill anybody. They told me that they were going to analyze the technology for possible commercial applications," implored Langham._

"_Why would you believe that?" asked Jonas._

"_You don't think money has anything to do with this? In the last six months there have been at least twenty new patents that could be traced back directly to Area 51. I'm talking industrial chemicals, metallurgy, computers...you name it."_

"_So they're selling alien technology?"_

"_No, they're buying it. The members of the Committee aren't spies or secret agents. They're businessmen. The NID agents work for them. They've got hundreds of millions invested and they expect to make billions in return by incorporating alien advancements into their product lines," explained Langham._

"_I thought this was about protecting the planet," said Jonas, you could hear the contempt in his voice._

"_Well, nobody said it had to be a non-profit business," said Langham._

"_Give us the names and we'll ensure your safety," assured Hammond._

"_Oh, well, I'm gonna need a few more details. You work for the Air Force. You don't have witness protection program."_

"_But we do have the Stargate," said Jonas slyly._

"_What do you mean?" asked Langham curiously._

"_Well, if these people are as powerful as you say they are, there's probably no where on Earth you'd be safe. Fortunately, we have other options," said Hammond._

The names of the secret backers had been attached to the transcript. O'Day glanced and the list and whistled appreciatively.

"These are the names of some of the most affluent and rich businessmen in the country," said the FBI agent, shaking his head. "Prosecuting them is going to be a nightmare and will take years of litigation and court."

"The STO should take care of that nicely," disagreed Harry, and turned to Sam, "what do you think? China, Russia, even the UK could make certain these men pay for their crimes in a sure fashion."

"Are you saying what I think you are?" said O'Day incredulously.

"Theoretically, according to the STO framework, crimes against Earth using extra-terrestrial means and or influence is tried in front of a full gathering of the Council, they can also rule which judicial system to use. So, yes, it's entirely possible that they will find themselves soon in a Russian gulag or a harsh Chinese prison…."

"One step at a time," said O'Day with a warding gesture of his hands. "We have the names, yes, but we need a location."

"That's where Mr Devlin comes in."

**Unknown Location, Washington DC, Earth**

Six men sat around an elegant table in a darkened room. If a layman were to look at them, he would think them a gathering of business executives; all had a hale look of long experience about them. They could perhaps be deciding the fate of their company, employees, who would be fired, who would be hired. One could even be forgiven for thinking them a concerned grouping of middle age to old men who were wise and had big families, lots of granddaughters and sons who they doted on. They could go out to a country club and blend in seamlessly.

But, as the old adage goes, appearances aren't everything, and nothing is at it seems.

The spokesman for the group, the eldest, tented his fingers under his chin and stared at their 'employee' who stood formally at the other end of the table.

"Agent Devlin, it's good to see you again, now that you have broken cover, please accept our humble thanks for taking care of Senator Kinsey."

Devlin nodded.

"Your usual fee is waiting for you in your account," assured another Committee member.

"I'm afraid there is a problem however," said Devlin raising his hand, "the SGC has Dr Langham in custody."

"That's not important," interjected the Spokesman. "His accusations will be little more than a minor inconvenience for us. Instead of worrying about him, I suggest we use the mimic devices to eliminate another thorn in our side."

"Someone at the SGC or STO?" inquired Devlin stoically.

"General Hammond. Once he's out of the way we can replace him with someone we've been maneuvering slowly forward to be in a prime position for this, he will be much more…sympathetic to our concerns," said the Spokesman.

"If they know about the devices they'll be prepared for it," warned Devlin.

"Devlin's right," said another member, "besides, now that Kinsey's dead, we have other options."

"I think it's time we send someone to talk to Hammond," said the member sitting closest to the doors, "get him to reconsider those retirement plans."

"He doesn't seem like the type to bow to outside pressure," said the Spokesman thoughtfully.

"Well then we are going to have to be very convincing."

"And if he still refuses?" asked Devlin grimly.

"Then kill him," said the Spokesman.

Devlin began to smile and shake his head.

"What do you find amusing Agent Devlin?" said the Spokesman for the Committee.

"You…all of you," said Devlin and began to chuckle. The NID Agent then began to walk around the table. "I admit I'm somewhat impressed." He leaned and clapped two members on the shoulder in a companionable gesture. "You get informed about the Stargate Program…" he began to circuit around the table, tapping another member on the shoulder, "…you bribe the Director of the NID, effectively hijacking an entire government agency for your companies' purposes." He finally stopped behind the Spokesman. "You subvert a number of key military personnel, Harry Mayborne, the most memorable. Even have your own offworld operation for a few years."

"What is this Agent Devlin?" asked the Spokesman in a dangerous tone, as Devlin began to walk down the table.

"This…well, I'm just listing your impressive accolades," said Devlin with a strange grin. "Don't tell you're not proud of your accomplishments. I mean, look at the people of the planet Madronas, how many died when you stole the weather control device from it? Then the thefts from Asgard planets, how many people died when they couldn't find the devices that would keep them safe. Oh, well, they were just primitives so who cares? Oh, and let's not forget Steveston, Oregon. An entire town…dead. The theft of the Deadalus. Finally ending with the killing of Senator Kinsey…well, it's just masterful."

Devlin came to a stop at his original spot.

"But now, I'm afraid it's all come to an end," said Devlin, his hands gesturing grandly, and as he spoke his features changed and melted away to be replaced by Harry.

"Potter!" snarled a Committee member in anger. One of the members fumbled for a concealed weapon, but it was sailing out of his hands towards Harry before he could even get a proper grip on it. The pistol vanished with a ripple of light.

"There is no point in resisting or fleeing," said Harry with narrowed eyes. "Even if you could somehow make it past me beyond the door, _Prometheus_ has your lifesigns locked in and stand ready to beam you out. They are listening as well, and have recorded the entire meeting. In addition the FBI has already surrounded the building."

The Committee looked nervously at each other.

"I bring General Hammond's regards and that of the STO, under whose authority, you are now under arrest. Have a nice day."

The sound of multiple transports and flashes of accompanying light followed, leaving Harry alone in the room. The door behind him opened to reveal O'Day and Sam.

"What will happen to them?" asked O'Day eagerly.

"That will depend on the STO Council," said Harry. "More than likely, one of them will have to publicly take the fall for Kinsey's death, since we still have to provide the civilian authorities with proof of Colonel O'Neill's innocence."

"That will require at least revealing the development and existence of the mimic technology to the public at large," said Sam with a wince.

"It's not impossible," retorted Harry. "Unfortunately, it means that Jack will have to endure a trial and even a retrial."

"O'Neill can thank his lucky stars the Attorney General is privy to the Stargate program, she'll be able to speed the process somewhat," said O'Day. "But what about the others?"

"The STO Council will hold a hearing, just a formality really, most likely they will spend the remainder of their lives on Luna 2…the Naquadah mine facilities there are almost complete."

"You're kidding," said O'Day in amazement.

"Hardly," said Harry dryly with a raised eyebrow. "Though, the Council might still decide on the death penalty."

"They don't deserve the escape of death," countered O'Day strongly.

"Perhaps," allowed Harry. "But you have more work to do Agent O'Day, an order will come tomorrow from the President to have all NID branches, cells and assets to be frozen. All employees arrested pending a review of their actions. The agency will effectively cease to exist."

"Happy day."

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_A/N: And so that irritating gnat of an agency is finally killed off. Honestly, they create more problems than they solve. (Ie. Their stupidity allows the Goa'uld and Ba'al to infiltrate Earth and the Trust) In SG Canon, the NID 'provides vital civilian oversight of top secret military projects' Richard Woolsey 'Heroes' SG1 S7. I dunno, but in reality doesn't the secret Senate Select Committee on Intelligence do that? The STO is now the SGCs watchdog in any case. From now on in my SG Universe, the CIA and the FBI will deal with American issues related to the SGC. Special Agent O'Day is a member of the FBI's National Security Bureau (NSB); which in reality deals with Counter-Intel, Counter-terrorism, Intelligence and WMDs._


	34. Chapter 34

_**Chapter 34 - Forsaken**_

**SGC, Gate Room**

The clatter of chains ringing against each other was heard and the squat shuffle of soft soled feet padding against concrete. In concert with this were heavier sounds of booted leather feet thundering forward with resolute purpose. Two large figures entered the room with a third escorted between them. The contrast in color between was an eyesore, an orange jumpsuited individual between two green clad menacing looking military policemen.

They came to a stop near the embarkation ramp and met two others.

"Jack, sorry if I don't shake hands," said former Colonel Harry Mayborne, jiggling his leg irons and hand cuffs almost mockingly. "How long has it been?"

"Oh, probably not long enough, Harry," said Jack wryly.

"I'm sorry I couldn't oblige you by allowing myself to be killed by those disgruntled former NID assassins," said Mayborne equally as wryly. "You'd think a Federal solitary prison would be safe..."

"Yeah," grumped Jack, and turned to the Control room and nodded. The Stargate began to cycle and dial in coordinates.

"Mayborne," nodded Harry 'Potter', clad in his RAF BDUs with the Air Commodore rank on his lapels.

"Potter."

"The Tok'ra will be waiting for you on the other side of the Gate," explained Harry. "The particulars of your new 'home' planet will be explained to you by them. Take off his restraints."

The MPs nodded obediently and using a keyring began undoing the locks on various places. As soon as Mayborne was free to move he rubbed his wrists and winced slightly and gave a gimlet eye to one of the MPs...obviously the man had been too vigorous in clamping on the irons.

"I'm not even gonna get some basic gear? I'm not even out of my prison uniform," said Mayborne.

"No, the Tok'ra will see to any of that, and make sure that its 'appropriate' for the technological level of the planet where you will eventually be living on," explained Harry with a smile.

"Oh," said Mayborne, his shoulders drooping somewhat. "Knowing Jack he probably told them to send me to some nice pre-industrial civilization..."

"You deserve it, Harry," said Jack with a smirk as the Gate activated and the unstable vortex 'kawooshed' out of the gate and settled into a simmering pool.

Mayborne mockingly saluted Jack and walked the first few steps up the ramp. "Be seeing you."

"Hopefully not, Harry," said Jack, returning a sloppy salute.

Mayborne shook his head and walked the final few steps and vanished into the event horizon. The subspace path snapped off barely a few moments later.

"I almost feel..." said Jack thoughtfully.

"...sad," said Harry pointedly.

"Yeah, he may have been an enemy once, reluctant ally, and all around pain in the ass...but I'll miss his...rivalry."

Harry chuckled in response and walked out of the room.

Later in the same afternoon, Harry was reading a rather surprise email in his newly designated office on Sublevel twenty five. The office was actually two adjoining rooms, one was a standard admin style with large desk, meeting chairs, Qomputer, filing cabinets and a large architect's design table where he could draw blueprints. The other room was a pure science lab, a near replica of Sam's.

The email had been sent using the laptop he had given Hermione. Harry had included an emergency contact program in it that would allow Hermione to contact him in a direct fashion if there was ever any dire need or she didn't want to use 'proper' channels, ie through the government.

Her email brought some good news; the magical government had been reformed in Britain and the first ever Council of Nine had been selected by the Goblet of Fire. The Council was due to meet in a specially prepared location in a few days. The repairs to Hogwarts had finally been finished. However, there was now a conundrum plaguing the ancient institution; with the Great Leap, the magical register in Hogwarts that recorded magical births or children who could attend had exploded in size to cover every child in the U.K. Harry could only imagine what the old Ministry would have made of their magical adult register exploding in a similar fashion. In a way, Voldemort did the magical world a favor by destroying the Ministry in that regard.

Of course, there was no way Hogwarts could accommodate every child in the UK, and so Dumbledore had put his head together with Hermione and the provisional Hogwarts teaching staff and between them fashioned a device similar in the manner as the Goblet; which would select prospective students. Any Hogwarts graduate would be given incentives to move on and teach in the Delphi Academies or going into whatever careers they wish.

Hermione was also just as busy working with the Delphi Academies in the UK. She also wished to see him as soon as it was convenient for him. She gave no indication about what this was about, but said that it was a matter of mutual importance and was best discussed face to face.

Any further consideration of the email was interrupted when the incoming wormhole klaxon blared through the base. He shut down his Qomputer and headed to the elevator. By the time he could get a ride down to sublevel twenty eight the wormhole had shut down.

The Russian team, SG-15, was standing in the gate room, but with them was an unfamiliar youngish looking man dressed in drabby clothes and looking in awe at the surroundings he was in. SG-1, Hammond and Frasier were already there and were seemingly in the process of giving a scolding lecture to SG-15's leader, Colonel Evanov.

"You better have a damn good reason for bringing a person back with you without prior approval," said General Hammond sternly.

"General, Sir," said Evanov, hurrying to explain, "Alebran and his people are innocent victims of the Goa'uld Nirrti. I felt certain that you would wish to act."

"Colonel Evanov has promised that you would help us," said Alebran hopefully.

"If it is within our power to help, we will do so," said Harry in firm voice, glancing significantly at everyone with a raised eyebrow. If there was one thing that he would not stand, then it would be for Earth to fall into the same lofty self-centered attitudes that the Ancients and the Tollan had developed. As evidenced by either civilizations current states; it was a catastrophic trap to fall into.

Doctor Janet Frasier nodded firmly in agreement and kindly asked Alebran, "Are you in any pain?"

"It is nothing I cannot endure," said the drab young man.

"Sir, with your permission I'd like to take him to Isolation 3?" she asked of Hammond.

"Very well," nodded Hammond.

"Come with me," said Janet kindly and led the young man by the arm out of the Gate room.

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**Isolation Room 3, SGC**.

Janet was hovering over a prone Alebran, who was comfortably ensconced in a bed and she was waving a medical sensor over him which sent real time scans and imagery to a nearby plasma screen for her to interpret.

Everyone else had gathered around the room and was being brought up to speed on what happened on SG-15's mission.

"We found him near the Stargate after we performed a recon of Nirrti's fortress," said Colonel Evanov in his heavy Russian accent, "or rather he found us. Alebran has asked for our help to save his people being held prisoner inside."

"I thought she was helping us," said Alebran anxiously, "then I saw one of my people die in such a horrible way...I realized otherwise. When I questioned her methods, she released me."

"She let you go?" asked Jonas.

"I was well enough to return home she said," said the young man, "when I arrived back at the village, everyone was dead. She lied to us. Those of us she took away were the last of our people. She was using us."

"You look okay to me," said Jack in confusion.

"Please, do not be fooled by my appearance. I spent just as much time in the machine as the others. I know that I have been changed inside; I am not as I was before," explained Alebran.

"What kind of machine?" asked Sam shrewdly.

"It's one that sees inside of us, it allows her to manipulate that which we are made of," said the off-worlder.

"If he's talking about some kind of device which can directly alter human DNA in real time..." said Janet darkly.

"You believe Nirrti is attempting to create a **hok'taur**," said Teal'C with a raised eyebrow.

"I am not familiar with that term," said Evanov with a frown.

"It means advanced human, like us," explained Harry.

"Nirrti is most interested in creating the perfect human host in order to increase her power," said Teal'C.

"We should show her what happened in Steveston, she might change her mind," said Jonas sarcastically.

"So, she's at it again," said Jack, shaking his head.

"No, sir," said Sam, shaking her head. "This is worse."

"Sam's right," agreed Janet, "Up till now, Nirrti's been using eugenics. Like with Cassandra's people; selectively breeding only those that demonstrate specific genetic attributes. With a machine that can alter DNA and a population with which to experiment, Nirrti could create a new host or even alter the DNA of her current one. There is also no guarantee that a 'Steveston' effect would occur in an advanced human created in such a fashion, since the strong immune system needed to kill a symbiote could be genetically suppressed."

"A Goa'uld with the powers of a hok'taur," said Jonas darkly.

"Obviously we can't let that happen," said Janet.

"As you know, Nirrti does not have the power or resources of the other Goa'uld. She only has a small number of Jaffa in her service," explained Evanov. "I believe her capture or assassination is quite possible."

"Sir?" prompted Jack.

"Agreed," said Hammond.

"Can you get us into that fortress?" asked Jack of the young off-worlder.

"No. I cannot go back," said Alebran adamantly with a great wave of fear that Harry could clearly sense.

"We're offering to help your people, Alebran," encouraged General Hammond.

"No, there is no time," retorted the young man his breathing speeding up significantly, "I feel it, something's happening."

"What the...!" said Janet in alarm, staring incredulously at the medical sensors.

"Doctor, report!" snapped Hammond.

"His cellular structures are in a sort of...cascading failure!"

"Alebran believes Nirrti has the power to kill him even here," said Evanov grimly.

"Are you detecting a Stargate proximity device?" said Sam in a hurry. Janet waved the medical sensor over the chest area of Alebran...

"No," said Janet, breathing a slight sigh of relief.

"I don't understand..." said Evanov with a frown.

"Nirrti can place a device within a person that uses naquadah and the potassium in a person's own body to create a bomb that detonates when it comes into proximity of a Stargate..." explained Sam but was interrupted when Alebran began to convulse.

"Shit, code blue! He's in defib!" shouted Janet. Everyone knew that their cue to leave and an ER med team came rushing in the other way. Everyone gathered in the upper observation area to see if Janet and her team could save the young man.

They tried every conventional remedy...which failed. They next tried a modified Goa'uld Hand Healing device...

"...I feel like the boy holding a finger in the hole of a dyke trying to hold back an ocean," said Janet with gritted teeth as the device poured healing mitochondrial energy onto Alebran. The entire medical team even added to the effort by using their combined Touch Healing abilities.

"The damage is to his very DNA...it's been destabilized..." said one of the Nurses.

"Then we must reinforce it..." said Janet.

"That will only be a temporary solution...the damage is too extensive...none of us are geneticists here," said Dr Warner.

The team did their best, but in the end, they had only bought Alebran more time...he died after two hours.

**SGC, Briefing Room 1**

"He died from what I can only describe as acute cellular collapse," said Janet grimly to the assembled group. Harry shuddered as he recalled that moment. Alebran had almost literally disintegrated into the base components his body was made up of, mainly water. The young man had...dissolved; it was the only word that could come close to describing it. What had been a human was now a drying puddle of organic goo on the floor of the Isolation room. "We did our best to stave it off, but whatever Nirrti did to him in that machine had completely rewritten his base genetic code...and to a degree that made it impossible for us to repair in time before his cell walls collapsed."

"I understand, Doctor," said Hammond and turned to Jack. "Colonel, how soon can your team be ready?"

"Right away, Sir, I'd like to take SG3 as backup, and SG15," he said after a moment's consideration, glancing at Evanov.

"General, I'd like to accompany the team," said Harry.

"Any particular reason?"

"Firstly, this device to modify DNA in real time sounds like something the Alterans would build, and whose to say Nirrti has not been successful in engineering an advanced human or something close to it...if that is the case then the team might be facing a System Lord with a metaphysical ability."

"Very well," nodded Hammond. "Though let's hope it doesn't come to that."

**Alebran's Planet, Remnant's of Nirrti's Domain**

As they stepped through the Stargate and onto the home planet of Alebran, Harry could only note that it was characteristic in a manner Jack would sarcastically describe as 'trees, trees and more trees.' The sky did have two moons in it though. The team was armed for bear with PR8s, full armor and Combat Information systems. Harry on the other hand had only come with his chromesuit and carried a detached PR8.

There was a well worn path leading from the Gate towards the relative east.

"This is the path leading to the fortress," said Evanov, his HUD eyepiece glinting in the sun as he gestured towards the path leading off into the treeline and down a hill. "Guarded by Jaffa."

"Not many?" asked Jack.

"Only ten," said Evanov confidently.

"All right, SG3, perimeter of the Stargate, Evanov, Potter, you and SG15 with us," commanded Jack.

The teams split into their roles and Harry took point, just in case a Goa'ulded **hok'taur** jumped out at them. That initial worry was unfounded though as they managed to approach into visual range of the fortress uncontested and without challenge. The imposing structure was most definitely of early Alteran design and was surrounded on three sides by rugged terrain and the only easy approach was via an incline that had been walled off. The Jaffa were manning guard positions along this wall and three Staff cannons were also manned and ready to spit lethal energy at anyone attempting to assault the fortress.

"They're well positioned," commented Sam softly.

"We're gonna need a diversion to get their heads out of cover," said Jack considering his strategy. "Potter, Carter, that's you. Evanov, I want your men in sniping positions, uneven stagger, call your targets. Jonas, Teal'C, with me."

They split into their designated assignments, keeping low and putting as much cover between the Jaffa fortification and themselves as they moved. Harry and Sam made good use of the relative height of the fortification, and with skill and a Notice-Me-Not field that he stretched around them both, managed to sneak right up against the wall. C4 charges were placed and armed, after which they quickly made themselves scarce.

After they had reached a safe distance from the wall, they found some cover and charged their PR8s. Sam pulled out her remote C4 detonator, flicked the safety cap off and triggered her radio twice. Three bursts of radio static followed a minute or so later, everyone was in position. Sam triggered her radio once.

"Ten seconds," she whispered.

Harry took a deep breath and readied himself mentally, his hands tightening on the PR8. Ten seconds later, she flicked the switch on her remote detonator, it beeped and two massive detonation fireballs rocketed into the air. The shockwave from the blast took a whole section of the wall and crumbled it into pieces that were barely larger than pebbles. Three Jaffa had immediately been killed in the blast.

It was everyone's cue and immediately multiple blue bolts of energy whined through the air from multiple directions. The unfortunate effect of the explosion was that it had churned up a lot of dust into the air, meaning that a lot of the initial shots they fired were off the mark. Two Jaffa died in the first one sided exchange of fire.

The remaining five Jaffa managed to rally enough to return fire, even using the Staff cannon. But they were outnumbered and didn't have the initiative, nor a clear line of sight on their enemies. It was all over in another thirty seconds, with Jack taking out the last Jaffa who decided that retreat was the better part of valor. However, they couldn't risk the Jaffa getting away.

"_Evanov, stay out here for now, watch our six, Potter, SG1 meet me at the entrance,_" came Jack's call over the radio.

"_Yes sir._"

"Let's go," said Sam, carefully breaking from cover and beginning the advance towards the fortress.

**Nirrti's Fortress**

The large structure was clearly showing its age on the lower levels, but there had been clear signs of reinforcement and rebuilding, most likely done by Nirrti. There were also signs in Goa'uld pointing the way to various points in the structure; clearly depicting a time when the place was used by just more than ten Jaffa.

As such it was quite easy to find their way to a large room on the upper levels that had a rather picturesque view of the surrounding countryside. The interior was clearly recently lived in and cleared of most of the dust and debris that had littered the other rooms in the place.

Harry's eyes instantly found what he suspected was the machine Alebran mentioned. It had two components...a raised dais with a pedestal, on top of which was crystalline touch pads, which had been remarked into Goa'uld. A few feet away from the pedestal embedded in the floor were a raised circular platform, about less than a meter in width.

Sam and the rest of SG1 swiftly began to scan the room, and immediately pointed their PR8s and single Staff weapon toward a screen that covered a corner of the room.

"Come out slowly," ordered Jack. "We know you're behind there..."

"Please, don't hurt us," said a voice. It belonged to one of four men in long drabby robes with hoods covering their faces that emerged from behind the screen. They had a strange loping gait that suggested that all was not well with them.

"We're not here to hurt anyone," said Jonas, lowering his PR8 slightly. "We've come here to rescue you. Take you from this place."

"No, no, we cannot leave," said the robed figure.

"One step at a time, Jonas," advised Jack, "where's Nirrti?"

"She is not here."

"Are you expecting her back?" said Sam.

"Of course, for our treatment."

"My name is Jonas," said the Kelownan Tok'ra, extending an olive branch.

"I am Woden," said the robed figure, glancing briefly at his similarly clad fellows. Woden raised his hands and removed his hood. Harry inwardly winced at Woden's appearance; the man had been heavily mutated and had an extra eye on the side of his misshapen head. Clearly Nirrti had been busy.

"We've come from a place called Earth. To help, all of you," said Jonas.

"That is not necessary," said Woden earnestly, "Nirrti is helping us."

"Excuse me?" said Jack incredulously.

"She cares for us. Nirrti is our god."

"Nirrti is of a race called the Goa'uld," said Teal'C archly.

"They're parasitical beings that use our kind as hosts," explained Sam.

"We are very ill," countered Woden, "Nirrti is curing us of our sickness."

"That is most unlikely," retorted Teal'C.

"When the god Nirrti came, a great plague had befallen our people. We were dying. With the machine, Nirrti has kept us alive," explained Woden.

"Ambassador? You make anything of that machine yet?" asked Jack.

"Well, it's definitely built by the Alterans," said Harry, standing next to the dais and looking it up and down. "It's clearly damaged however, Nirrti should not even have been able to activate it." He stepped onto the dais and the pedestal immediately lit up for him.

"You mean it's also keyed to Alteran DNA?" asked Sam curiously.

"Yeah, it should be, but as I said, the mechanism which detects who uses it must be damaged," he gazed at a few of the keys in front of him, "she defaced this thing with Goa'uld characters but I think this should be..." he tapped a sequence. The circular platform lit up and immediately a confinement beam shot out of it, clearly meant to hold the subject being modified completely immobile. He tapped another sequence, accessing the recent memory. A holographic DNA helix shot up from platform to ceiling.

"You can use the machine?" said Woden in astonishment.

"Yes, it will take me a few hours to figure out, but I can," said Harry with a nod.

"So you can cure them of their...you know?" asked Jack.

"The DNA manipulator stores the baseline DNA of everyone that goes in it and keeps a permanent record of any changes made, just in case a mistake is made that causes...yes I can," said Harry shortly when he saw Jack zone out.

"Good, now we need to know when and where Nirrti is coming back," stated Jack, looking at Woden.

"Very soon, and when she comes she will punish you," said another robed figure who removed his hood to show he was also severely deformed.

"This is Egar," said Woden gesturing to the man.

"Your people were never sick, Nirrti's been lying to you," said Jonas strongly.

"No, no, the plague ravaged our people long before she came. Our village was almost wiped out."

"It is possible she discovered them in this condition and merely took advantage of the situation," theorized Teal'C, his jaw flexing.

"She brought me to this place, she gave me back my life," said Egar, his deformed lips giving him an odd slur to his speech.

"Well, so can I," said Harry with a raised eyebrow. "Yet you don't see me proclaiming myself a god." It was then that Harry was surprised by a very strong mental probe come rocketing from Egar. His momentary surprise was enough for Egar to get a few glimpses of his recent thoughts...but he recovered to bat the probe away. Egar tried again, this time Harry felt less charitable and reversed the probe, causing the mutated man to flinch away and cry out in pain as he cradled his head. "My mind is my own, Egar, do not presume you have a right to read it," said Harry coldly.

"What did you do?" said Woden in alarm, kneeling down next to his friend.

"He tried to read my mind, I politely refused him access, he tried again," explained Harry.

"You can stop him doing that?"

"Yes."

"But why do you not look..."

"My abilities are natural Woden, I was born with them," said Harry softly. "I take it you have an ability too?"

"I...I can move things without my hands..." To seemingly demonstrate he shoved his hands outwards towards the screen that had been shielding them from view earlier...it bent as if a demolition ball had struck it.

"Impressive," nodded Harry with a smile. "But you understand that your...ability is not stable."

"Yes," nodded Woden, helping Egar up. "If we don't get treatment by tomorrow, we will die."

"Ok, Ambassador, get busy, I'll go brief Evanov. Jonas, Teal'C, Carter keep these fine folks company," said Jack, walking away.

"You are planning to kill Nirrti," said Egar with a wince.

"The Ambassador warned you about poking around in people's heads," said Jack darkly.

"Are you certain, Egar?" said Woden.

"Yes, even now..."

"And are you going to try to stop us?" asked Harry with narrowed eyes.

"Nirrti is our god..." insisted one of the remaining two men.

"She is not a god," said Jonas with a sigh. And turned to them, his eyes flashing and voice distorting as Kanan took over. "**Does she also make her eyes glow? Does she also speak as I do now?**"

"But...how is this...possible..." said Woden with wide eyes.

Jack left while Kanan quickly and simply gave him a rundown of the Tok'ra and Goa'uld, how the Goa'uld enjoyed gaining power by forcing people to worship them as gods and how in comparison the Tok'ra lived in symbiosis and were sworn enemies of the Goa'uld. He also gently broke the news of how Alebran died and the rest of the rest of their village and even allowed Egar to read his mind to verify that he was telling the truth. This seemed to mollify Woden considerably.

"I must speak of this to the others," said the Telekinetic. "Nirrti had commanded those of us who remain to live in the underground levels. I see it was now to isolate us from the truth. If we had been allowed to come and go as we please, we would have returned to the village."

"How many of you are there?" asked Sam.

"Twenty three," answered Egar.

"Speak to your people, I will call when I have mastered the device," said Harry with a kind smile.

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It took a few quick peaks into his Alteran Legacy and a bit of experimentation, especially since the machine's controls had been renamed into Goa'uld to finally get a good grip on how it worked. And since the baseline DNA info was there it was merely a matter of changing the altered mutated DNA strands to the baseline stored in the machine. It was also lucky that the machine kept a visual record of which DNA belonged to who, as well.

Jonas and Teal'C went off to join the ambush that was being laid out for Nirrti near the Stargate, whilst Sam stayed with Harry to learn all she could about the Alteran DNA Manipulator while he worked.

Woden was the first to enter the machine. He stood confined on the circular platform and his DNA swiveled ethereally around him. As it turned out the Manipulator could also be controlled mentally, which made the work go much faster. Woden spent barely twenty minutes in the machine before Harry was finally satisfied that he was back to normal.

"That is much faster than Nirrti ever was," said Woden in appreciation. "I once spent two hours confined in the machine."

"Well, this device was built by my distant ancestors and it's actually made only to be used by our kind," explained Harry. "But I digress, how do you feel?"

"Much better, and invigorated," said Woden.

"Your physical condition should improve in a few weeks, the deformities will recede as well," said Harry. Egar followed soon after, and by the end of his treatment, all the survivors of the village was in long cue to step into the machine. By the time the thirteenth villager had stepped out of the machine, Jack, Jonas and Teal'C had reappeared...all looking slightly disheveled.

"Hail Dorothy, the Wicked Witch is dead," said Jack with a smirk.

"I take it you mean that you've wasted Nirrti?" said Harry

"Yeah, though she did lead us on a merry chase of the woods, she went invisible with that gimmick of hers, didn't help her much though." He tapped his ears.

"Nirrti is dead?" asked Woden, not following the Earth idioms being used.

"Yes," nodded Jack.

"With her gone, you can get back to your lives, rebuild your village," said Sam.

"We can help you out with food and supplies until you get back on your feet," offered Jonas kindly.

"It is much appreciated," said Woden, bowing his head slightly.

"Also once we get know each other better, I'd really like the chance to study this machine," said Sam, glancing at Harry.

"I foresee no problems, but I was thinking rather that this device could be a first step towards a developing a cure for our little grey friends," grinned Harry.

"You mean this thing can cure Thor too?" asked Jack with surprise.

"It has the potential to be a first step, Jack. I better call Heimdall to get her little butt overhead with an Asgard Cruiser, she will also want to study this machine."

"Don't the Asgard have such technology already?" asked Sam.

"They can manipulate genes yes," answered Harry, "but neither with the speed nor ease with which this Alteran device allows. This will allow the research into their problem to go much faster."

"Well, let's all click our heels three times shall we."

It was two days later that Harry finally had a chance to reply to Hermione's email. Heimdall had insisted that he accompany her to study the Alteran DNA manipulator and show her the basic operating principles of the device. It took barely a single demonstration of it to convince his former teacher of its value, and not an hour later two _O'Neill_ class Asgard Battlecruisers hovered in the space over the planet for its protection and an entire Asgard science team was beamed down to analyze the device.

He settled in front of his qomputer and after checking his schedule, set a meeting for a week from now at a restaurant he remembered seeing near the Tower of London.

There was a knock on his door and he looked up to see Jonas poking his head in.

"Ambassador."

"Jonas, you're back early," said Harry with a frown, "SG1 was supposed to be studying that nebula..."

"Yeah, we did, but it kinda got turned into an accidental First Contact," explained Jonas. "There's a briefing in ten minutes."

"Say no more, I'll be there, I just have send this email off."

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**Briefing Room 1, SGC**

Jonas was leading the briefing and Sam was back as well for some reason too, meaning Jack and Teal'C had stayed behind, most likely keeping the First Contactees company.

"We encountered a crashed ship here," said Jonas, gesturing with the remote to the viewscreen which displayed a topographical scan of the planet they were viewing the expanding nebula from. The screen changed again to show a picture of the ship partially buried in a clearing...it looked structurally intact, amazingly. "We encountered three human survivors with this ship; its name is the _Sebrus. _They were on their way to relieve an off world mineral extraction team when their ship got caught in an asteroid storm. Their ship was damaged and they were forced to do an emergency landing."

"Their home planet is called Hebradan. By the sounds of it, their ancestors might have come from somewhere near the Outer Hebrides Islands off the coast of Scotland." He nodded at Sam.

"Based on its position in space," she said, "I've determined that it doesn't have a Stargate, at least not one that we're aware of."

"Then how did a society of humans evolve there?" asked Hammond curiously.

"The Goa'uld would sometimes take a Gate with them if it suited their purposes when abandoning a planet," said Harry thoughtfully. "It was also used as a delaying tactic in the past if they were driven or beaten off a planet...this was of course, when Goa'uld Hyperdrives were nowhere near as powerful as they are today."

"To keep an enemy from using the Gate to launch further attacks," nodded Hammond in understanding.

"The real mystery though," continued Jonas, "is how they managed to advance to the technological level they've reached; since I've determined their society was taken there during the time we believe Sokar had a secret operational Gate on Earth during the Dark Ages."

"Meaning they went from agrarian society to interstellar star nation in less than eight hundred years without external help," commented Harry thoughtfully. "Doesn't seem possible, but the Universe is full of surprises."

"Their sub-light space flight technology is way in advance of our own," explained Sam further, obviously trying to put a concrete reason whey relations with the Hebradans should be pursued beyond the humanitarian one of helping repair their ship. "They use liquid nitrogen to fuel an ion propulsion system. Personally I can't wait to see how they generate a sufficient strength emission of ions to propel a ship at viable sublight speeds."

"We have a problem though," reported Jonas. "There are an unknown number of aliens also on this planet, who have repeatedly attacked the _Sebrus_ over the past months."

"Non-human?" asked Hammond.

"Yes, Sir. Though they are bipedal and intelligent. We were attacked not a few hours after discovering the _Sebrus_. Colonel O'Neill tried to stun one of the aliens to find out why they were attacking, but the crew from the _Sebrus_ killed the alien before 'he' could be revived and questioned. One of the crew was wounded in the attack and is being treated in the Infirmary."

"Very well, what's your evaluation of these people, Major?"

"Cautiously optimistic, sir."

"Can you fix their ship?" said Hammond.

"If I can recharge their batteries using a naquadah generator and bring along a sufficient quantity of liquid nitrogen to replace that lost in the crash and there are no other problems..."

"Take whatever you need, and SG15," agreed the General. "Ambassador, I want you to go along...see if you can't reason with these aliens to stop their attacks."

"Yes, Sir."

**Nebula Planet**

Harry stepped through the event horizon to another forested planet, though this one had a binary sun in the sky. Since it was a potential combat zone he was clad in chromesuit and carried the PR8 AW. Sam came through next controlling a Mobile Cargo Platform (MCP) carrying five large liquid nitrogen containers, transfer pipes and valves and a Naquadah Generator. Colonel Evanov and SG15 followed thirty seconds later and the Gate shut down.

The journey to the crash site with the MCP was quite slow and required a bit of creative maneuvering as the terrain was not exactly flat.

When the crash site finally came into view; Harry took a moment to admire the _Sebrus_. It had a distinct bird-of-prey shape with two engine emitters in the rear tail and what looked like variable geometry engines on the wing tips used for vertical take off and landing and precision maneuvering. It was painted a dull green that was coated in dust.

"Well, their spaceframe construction techniques must also be quite impressive if the ship could still be intact, after a crash like this," commented Harry.

"Yeah, I'm hoping to get a look at that as well," said Sam with a grin.

They approached the side of the ship where Jack, Teal'C and two unfamiliar humans were talking to each other in a rather brisk manner. They wore a form of leather jumpsuit and had a distinct air of being rather desperate survivors. Both held rather strange looking green 'pure energy' weapons (since they only had an emitter on the front and not a muzzle).

"Sir," called Sam. "Hammond sent SG15 as backup and the Ambassador to help solve our 'little' alien problem."

"Jack," nodded Harry.

"Ambassador, think you can help us get ET to back off?"

"I'll try," said Harry dryly.

"Rather well armed for an Ambassador," commented one of the unfamiliar men.

"Oh yeah, Ambassador, this Captain Aiden Corso of the _Sebrus_," introduced Jack, and pointed to the other more thickset blond haired man, "and navigator Lyall Pender. Their First Officer is Tanis Reynard."

"Ah the wounded woman in our Infirmary," nodded Harry. "Yes, well, it's nice to meet you and I extend friendly greetings from the people of Earth. Now...if one of you can point me in the direction you last saw the alien, I'll get things started."

"You're going alone?" said Pender in astonishment. "You'll be killed..."

"I am going alone because going out there in numbers will merely look like we're hunting them down, which according to Major Carter was done once unsuccessfully already. Jack?"

"Two clicks north-east," said the Colonel.

"Thank you, Jack, can I have a word."

"Sure, get cracking Carter," ordered Jack. She nodded and began unlatching the supplies.

Harry accompanied Jack out of earshot of everyone and whispered into his ear.

"Oh," said the leader of SG1 in response. "Sure?"

"Yes, things are not as they seem with these men, keep both eyes on them," said Harry significantly and walked off into the forest.

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He considered the dead body of the alien as he stood disillusioned a few feet away. This alien was of a species he recalled as having seen in an Asgard database somewhere a long time ago. The Asgard didn't have much data on them beyond their appearance, physical characteristics and the fact that they were relatively advanced race, with FTL space flight and home system somewhere in the barren outer arm of the Milky Way that rose out of the galactic plane.

They were the Zerakens. A race with glistening brown patterned skin, knobbly heads and a characteristic white oval on either side of their heads that served as a highly sensitive ear. That being said he also had a silencing field around his body, since a Zeraken could most definitely hear a heart beat from a dozen feet away.

He was staking out the dead body of the Zeraken killed by either Corso or Pendell when the first attack happened. He was here in the hope that the others would come to collect their dead, if not, then at least the integrated dog tag on the front of the leather uniform.

His patience was rewarded after a few hours when out of the corner of his eye he saw movement. Another Zerakan wearing the same uniform as his dead comrade was slowly approaching and keeping low to the ground.

Harry carefully moved out of the way and watched as the Zerakan carefully crept next to his fallen comrade and snag the dog tag off the uniform. The Zerakan was clearly spooked and was hyperalert...clearly he was expecting that his comrade's body would be used as a trap. But the fact that nothing had happened yet was even more unsettling to him.

For the next hour Harry tracked the Zerakan. The alien was clearly somewhat skilled in evasion as he made sure he left as little disturbance of his passage through the forest as possible. He double backed, never stayed on a single path longer than a few minutes and cleared any sign of his footsteps.

Finally, the alien seemingly reached his destination. A rather ramshackle camp that looked like it had once been occupied by much more than just the single Zerak. There was also equipment from the _Sebrus_ around the camp, the Zerak also had a similar pistol version of the energy weapon that Corso and Pender had. The Zerak took it out of a holster and expertly pulled out its power pack and checked it; he gave a sad sigh as he looked at an indicator on it and reloaded his weapon.

Harry couldn't help but feel a pang in his heart as he saw the Zerak reach to a small bag and open it, to reveal numerous more dog tags. The alien took the one he had collected recently and stared at it in grim sadness and placed it with the others.

This Zerakan was the last one left.

Add the fact that the camp was quite a distance from the Stargate.

Harry sighed and slotted his PR8 onto the special catches the stretched across the chest armor. He walked across to a nearby tree and willed away the disillusionment and silence fields. The Zerakan instantly sprang up and brought his energy pistol to bear.

"Peace, Zerakan," said Harry raising his hands.

"Who are you? How did you get there?" said the alien quickly, still looking very jumpy.

"I'm Ambassador Harry Potter of Terra." Seeing no familiarity register on the alien... "I'm with those that are helping to fix the _Sebrus_."

"Your people should be more careful of who they help," retorted the alien.

"Perhaps," admitted Harry. "We did not know the Hebridans were hunting you...and not the other way around. You also attacked my people..."

"I...I am sorry," said the alien, his eyes constricting but keeping the weapon trained. "We could not risk them coercing your aid. Whatever the Hebridans told you is a lie. I am Warwick...Captain of the _Sebrus_."

Harry heard no lie in his voice.

"Well met, Warwick," nodded Harry. "I came in peace, I'm not here to kill you..."

"The leader of your team shot my first officer," retorted Warwick.

"The weapon has a stun setting," countered Harry, "O'Neill was not looking to kill your fellow crew. It was Pendell who fired the killing shot. Now...who are Corso, Pendell and Reynard to you?"

"Escaped prisoners," answered Warwick eventually lowering his weapon but keeping it in hand. "The _Sebrus_ was a prison transport vessel. Three years ago my crew and I were transporting Aiden Corso and two of his accomplices to a prison colony. We hit an asteroid storm and began to lose power. Our only hope for survival was to set down on this planet."

"And?"

"We had no choice but to take them out of transport stasis. The ship had insufficient power to sustain their lives."

"How many were there...of you?" asked Harry grimly, he hadn't seen the exact number of dog tags in the pouch.

"My crew was eight, including myself," said Warwick dismally. "We watched them in shifts. My first officer and I were looking for food and water when they overpowered the men guarding them and killed them in cold blood. Corso then took over the ship and used its defences against us. We tried many times to retake the _Sebrus_ but recently we were just lucky to stay alive. They hunted us like wild animals. You must believe me. They are the worst Hebradan has to offer. No matter what, they must not be allowed to go free."

Again Harry heard only truth.

"How did the Zeraken end up guarding Hebradan prisoners?"

"My kind helped liberate the Hebradans from the Goa'uld hundreds of years ago after we were forced to flee our homeworld when they attacked it in surprise," answered Warwick. "In turn the Hebradans gave us refuge on their world and we have lived in harmony, mostly, ever since."

"So you're the reason why their tech base is so high after so short a time," said Harry in realization.

"Indeed," said Warwick with a nod. He holstered his weapon. "What will you do now?"

"Give me a twenty minute head start...then follow, I have to warn my people."

"Corso and Pendell are there...your people could be taken unawares and hostage."

"I can be subtle," smirked Harry

Warwick blinked as the Ambassador walked backwards and moved behind a tree out of view. It was then that something happened that should've been impossible. He couldn't hear the Ambassador anymore. He rushed forward to look around the tree...nothing.

For a brief moment, he considered he had imagined the Ambassador...was he losing his mind?

No.

The footsteps of the Ambassador were still there. He felt the first stirrings of hope for a long time. The ship was being fixed, the prisoners would be defeated, he would see his wife Athea again. He rushed towards his things and began packing a small bag of items that he still had with him. But he paused when he saw the bag of ID tags for his shipmates.

They had been his crew...for over eight years they shared the dangers of being a transport ship in the farthest reaches of Hebradan explored space...they had become family, now they were all dead. For a long time he thought he would join them and then the prisoners would've won. He dreaded telling their families, that their loved ones had died, hunted down on a distant world for no other reason than fighting for survival against a pack of worthless though deadly criminals.

He was the Captain, it was his responsibility.

He glanced at his chrono and saw that the Ambassador's twenty minutes was up. He closed the bag with ID tags and put into his pack, shouldering it as he walked back to the _Sebrus_ crash site. He was five minutes walk away from his beloved ship that had been stolen from him when he heard the distinctive energetic thumping sound of Hebradan energy weapons being fired, interspersed amongst this was a low whining sound that had to be the plasma weapons of the Terrans.

Warwick cursed...clearly the Ambassador hadn't been subtle enough. Corso was the slimiest snake in all of the Hebradan Union, and clever enough to outwit even the most skilled bounty hunters and law enforcement officials. His final capture had been largely due of the fact that Corso had eventually gotten overconfident in that ability to elude capture, and so became a victim of his own success. The event that had led to his capture had been an innocuous ship parking violation of all things.

He was very close now and began to approach the crash site at careful crawl, using a thick tree for cover he peeked at the sight of a full on running battle.

Two Terrans were on the far side of the crashed _Sebrus_, using a fallen as cover and traded weapons fire with Pendell who was using the starboard wing of the ship as his own cover. The belly turret of the _Sebrus_ was shooting lethal green energy bolts towards another end of the crash site...where the Ambassador was, taking cover and darting from tree to tree...the belly turret was powerful enough to destroy the trees easily, but it nevertheless made a useful one use shield from the weapon.

Clearly Corso was inside the _Sebrus_ and controlling its defenses. He wondered though why the criminal had not used the Sonic Field yet. It was a defensive, anti-personnel system which would painfully resonate the eardrums of anyone outside the ship. As a Zerak, Warwick and his crew had been quite vulnerable to that defense. It had less of a pronounced effect on humans, but was equally as incapacitating.

Warwick didn't know what good it would do, but perhaps he could alleviate the weight of fire on the Ambassador, enough perhaps for the Terran to get a clear shot at the belly turret. If the Terrans used plasma weapons as he suspected, the shots would most likely burn through the armor of the turret quite handily.

The Captain of the _Sebrus_ pulled out his nearly drained energy pistol and taking careful aim, and began to fire on the belly turret. His first shot was too high, he cursed and quickly corrected his aim and a lethal energy pulse splashed against the turret, causing scorch marks on the paint.

The next moment the turret rotated to search out the new threat and locked onto him.

"Oh no." Clearly the sensors had been restored to some functionality.

He dived to one side and barely escaped with his life as two large green bolts from the turret disintegrated the tree he had been hiding behind. As it was, numerous splinters stabbed themselves into him and dug painfully into his skin. The turret moved to follow.

What happened next happened so fast he had barely time to comprehend it. The Ambassador was suddenly standing on top of the belly turret and he placed something on top of it...the next moment the Ambassador was gone...leaving behind...

...an explosion erupted...leaving the turret a twisted metal heap...

Warwick blinked. He couldn't believe he had survived that...and yet, he had. He also couldn't believe he had seen that...no, it must've been a trick of the moment...

The battle with Pendell had also stopped. The prisoner was down on the ground, unconscious. When did that happen?

The three Terrans rushed forward with their weapons still trained on the _Sebrus_. They met over the fallen form of Pendell and relieved the man of his energy rifle. There was a brief muttered conversation and then the Ambassador was heading towards his position.

"Warwick?"

"Here," moaned the Captain, rolling over on his back and wincing as the splinters of wood shifted in his skin.

"Ouch," winced Harry in sympathy. "Don't worry; we can have that looked at back on Terra."

"Thanks."

"No, I should be thanking you for attracting the attention of that turret, there was no other way I would've had the time to get close to it," said Harry kindly. He pulled out a small Battlefield Medkit from the AW armor and pretended to inject Warwick with a small vial of pain medication, while in fact he had cast a brief numbing matrix onto him. "Better?"

"Yes, thank you again."

"Ok, we're going to call in our back up team to take you to the Stargate, just hang in there and don't move, ok?"

"What's a Stargate?"

"You'll see. Now we just have to take care of Corso, he's holding Major Carter hostage inside the ship."

"Be careful and don't trust him to deliver on anything he promises..."

"I understand," nodded Harry and waved SG15 over to him. As soon as Warwick was in the capable hands of the SG15's field medic he walked back over to Teal'C and Jack who were quietly conversing at the edge of the clearing, no doubt figuring a way to get Sam out of her predicament. "Any ideas, Jack?"

"Plenty, just none that would ensure Corso doesn't kill Sa...Carter," he stammered on her name. "What I wanna know is why that asshole didn't use the Sonic gimmick against us?"

"Perhaps Major Carter is responsible," posited Teal'C stoically.

"Maybe," said Jack with a frown, staring at Harry, "hey, Sam told me you have one of those walk through the wall gadgets from Narim. Got two more?"

"I do have them," said Harry nonplussed. "But I have one on myself and a backup. You mean you want to...oh."

**Inside the Sebrus**

"This is Corso," spoke the convict into her radio. "Right now I'm pointing a Zat, I think it you call it, at Major Carter. I think you know what happens when I hit her twice with this thing."

Inwardly Sam fumed at herself. She had taken off her armor and weapons to fix the ship, since it was quite hot inside and she had to crawl into a few narrow spaces to get at the guts of certain systems. That had allowed Corso all the time in the world to steal her Zat, and he had oh so innocently and subtly asked her about her weapons. She had been lost in the zone and rapture she went into when tinkering or fixing a new machine or piece of tech to give any thought to the fact that she was basically telling a complete stranger how to use her weapons. Stupid. Stupid.

Now she was sitting tied up, leaning against a bulkhead in the cockpit with Corso pointing her own Zat on her. She winced as the bruise on the back of her head throbbed again from where the guy had hit her with the weapon.

"_This is Ambassador Potter_," came Harry's voice over the radio. "_You have five minutes to release Major Carter and surrender yourself...or we do this the hard way."_

"Did you not hear what I just said?" asked Corso angrily. "You try anything and the Major will be dead before you could even so much as begin to cut through the hull."

"_We heard you. But who said anything about cutting?_"

"What?" said Corso baffled.

Sam's eyes widened as she only now noticed the slight ripple of distortion in the bulkhead behind Corso. She hastily closed her eyes and curled up into a protective ball to shield her eyes and ears; just in time...as the world suddenly exploded in a haze of sound and white light, which she was mostly shielded from with her eyes closed and her legs buffering the intense overload of sound to her ears.

She didn't know how long it took for her senses to return, but she felt a supportive hand on her shoulder and a voice that seemed to come from a long way off.

"...s...am...SAM!"

She snapped out of the protective position and blinked away the stars in her vision to stare into the concerned face of Jack.

"You okay?"

"Fine," she said, trying to stand...the world suddenly couldn't decide which was the right way up.

"Oh no you don't," admonished Jack and pushed her back down, he took out a knife and cut off her restraints. "You've got a bad knock on the head, and you've just been in close proximity to a Flashbang. We're getting you home first to get that head looked at. This ship ain't going nowhere."

"Corso?"

"Stunned and in custody," answered Jack.

"Thank goodness for those Phaseshift devices," she mutttered, closing her eyes.

"They come in handy," her CO agreed.

"Pendell and Corso are secured and under guard by SG15," said Harry, coming into view. "We've also received an update from the SGC, apparently Jonas figured out that Reynard was lying all on his own."

"How did he do that?" asked Jack incredulously.

"Didn't say, you can ask him when he gets back with the third member of this terrible trio," shrugged Harry.

Two days later, the _Sebrus_ was fully repaired and now sitting properly on it landing struts ready to take off.

"Everybody locked up okay?" asked Jack.

"They're all in transport stasis," nodded Warwick and turned to Jonas. "Mr Quinn, I never did ask how you figured out who Reynard really was."

"Just a feeling really. Although I did come across something interesting while I was researching the name of your ship. There was another ship built by the descendents of the Ancient Celts on Earth. It was called the _Ceberus_. Coincidentally it was designed specifically to transport convicts to a penal colony. The names were so similar I thought maybe there was some significance in Celtic history and uh…"

"The meaning of the word never changed," finished Teal'C helpfully.

"Incredible," said Jack, shaking his head. Jonas shrugged modestly.

"Well that and I've always been suspicious of a girl who kisses on the first date."

Everyone looked strangely at the Kelownan.

"What?"

"Ambassador, I want to thank you and your people for helping me," said Warwick turning to Harry.

"It's our pleasure, and please take this," said Harry handing a silver cylinder to the Zerak. "Please give this to the leaders of your government. Inside is a formal letter of introduction, asking for an opening of formal relations between our peoples and a method for contacting us."

"I will forward this to my government," nodded Warwick. "I look forward to perhaps seeing you all again? When you visit Hebradan?"

"We will look you up," affirmed Jack with a smile.

Warwick nodded and gave a last wave to them and walked up the boarding ramp which closed slowly behind him. SG1 and Harry retreated a safe distance as the _Sebrus_ spooled and warmed up its engines, creating a heavy constant drone in the air. The ship's wing engines tilted and it rose vertically over the tree line before reorienting and blasting off into the sky.

**London, England **

He was the virtual picture of an affluent bachelor. Dressed in a formal suit that could have come straight out of the Armani fashion house, but adding a dash of casualness by loosing the tie that normally came with it and simply having a shirt underneath. He also was leisurely perusing a newspaper that he had picked up to simply pass the time until the scheduled time for his meeting with Hermione.

The waitress approached him again and asked if she could refill his coffee. He nodded with a smile at the woman, whom he thought must be rather uncomfortable in the uniform the restaurant foisted on its employees.

He was currently sitting at a table that was on a large exterior balcony, where those who wanted to enjoy a bit of fresh air could seat themselves while they ate. It gave an excellent view of the Thames River and the Tower Bridge a little further downstream. He also could keep an eye on a side street the restaurant used for deliveries that was only in use just before the rush hours. As such it was a perfect spot to Apparate, or as the Delphi Academies had termed the ability; Subspace Leaping.

He had suggested the spot for her in his email after having done some prelim scouting of the restaurant. That being said, he had also given the physical address if she wanted to arrive in a more traditional fashion.

And just so like her, she arrived bang on time, with a pop of displaced air in the side street. She was dressed in a pair of jeans and a green blouse that accentuated her figure in all the right places, and made the part of him that he associated with the memories of his ascended brother give a pang of longing and regret.

'_You have a very confusing life, my dear,'_ said Tok'ra Queen Egeria wryly within him. '_You love and care deeply for your wife, and yet I can't help but be attracted to Aiyana, meaning you are too. And here you are...feeling like this because of the memories of your brother..."_

"_Welcome to the madness that is my life_."

"Harry!"

Her familiar and excited voice broke his conversation with his symbiote and he smiled at her as she approached his table. He stood and they shared a hug.

"It's so good to see you," she gushed.

"Good to see you too," he grinned. "You're looking radiant, as ever." She did indeed, her healthy tanned complexion spoke of many recent holidays on the beaches in France...something she always like to do. Her hair was pulled into a braid that fell down to her mid back.

"Always know what to say to get a blush out of me, eh?" she asked her cheeks coloring slightly.

He shrugged. Having to fight a war daily would be a drag on anyone's appearance. Compared to the last days of the Voldemort War this Hermione was looking like a princess.

They sat down at the table and the waitress came over to take their order.

"What's good here?" asked Hermione.

"I really don't know...Chinese food has never really been my thing," he answered and directed a friendly questioning glance towards the waitress. She explained the specialty dishes that were on offer and with a lot of help from Hermione (who was much more used to Chinese) Harry decided that he'd be content with a Lamb and Chinese Onion dish while Hermione settled on a Sweet and Sour Chicken.

Over their meal they talked about all the recent happenings within the 'Wizarding World'...of particular interest was all the Death Eaters that had been captured since he had 'left'. There had been no repeat of the under the table money dealing that had happened the last time around, allowing some Death Eaters who could afford it to walk free. Primarily since it was the Council of Nine who was judging them...and since no one could know who was part of the Nine, therefore the briber didn't know who to bribe.

There was no dillydallying as well. Veritaserum was used and in remarkably brilliant insight from one of the Nine, the Sorting Hat. Death Eaters were being punished depending on the severity of the crimes uncovered by the Hat. The worst were chucked immediately after sentencing into the Veil of Death in the Department of Mysteries. The least a Death Eater could expect though was Petrifaction and Entombment in a Goblin run prison in a Fidelius protected abandoned coal mine.

"Nice to hear some decisiveness and backbone has entered the Wizarding world," mused Harry aloud.

"In no small part thanks to your actions and ideas, Harry," said Hermione astutely.

"So what did you want to really meet me for?" he said after giving her a penetrating stare, "surely not for just telling me of the Death Eaters meeting their justly deserved fate, which could have been easily sent in an email."

"No, well..." she flustered, "umm, could you place a Silencing Ward up...what I have to say is sensitive and I don't really know who I can trust with this information, except you..." She glanced significantly at the people around them also seated on the balcony.

"Very well," he acquiesced, and made a movement as if he was brushing of his hands, willing the air to prevent sound transmission in a sphere around them. Immediately the noise of the street and people around them was gone.

"As you know, I've been liaising between the 'Magical' and 'Normal' governments, helping with the organization of Delphi Academies, I've even taught at a few schools as a sort of roving guest lecturer," she explained and sighed heavily. "This means I have access to a lot of statistical data gathered by the government."

"Go on," he said curiously, wondering where this was going.

"In a nutshell, people...most of which are children, are disappearing."

In the heavy silence that followed that dark pronouncement he said, "I take it you mean beyond the usual statistics of children running away due to family problems or other common related phenomena?"

"Yes," she nodded, "because most of those who disappeared were from healthy family situations and had displayed rather pronounced magi...I mean metaphysical abilities. They were all seemingly picked up by their parents or accompanied by a loved one, only for the school to get a phone call or visit from the very same parents later asking where their children were. It was this incongruence that allowed me to pick up on it."

"You're saying someone or a group of criminals either using Polyjuice, or has a Metamorph ability and are kidnapping children by appearing to be their parents..." he trailed off, a suspicion niggled at him. "How widespread is it?"

"That's another reason why I asked you to come," said Hermione darkly, "it's not just in Britain. There are similar reports surfacing stippled all over Europe."

"Surely law enforcement has picked up on this already."

"They only pursue the individual kidnappings in their respective territories, they don't have access to all the data like I do," explained Hermione. "Interpol should have picked up on it, and something with this scope should've been announced, but I checked...through public channels and through back channels with the International Wizards Confederation. Nothing."

"That would imply that whoever is doing this has someone inside Interpol," theorized Harry thoughtfully.

"Indeed, but I wanted to ask you have the Goa'uld discovered us...that we all have metaphysical abilities?"

"No," said Harry confidently. "Oh...I see, you think that it might be them...stealing us and take us as hosts or using the children for experiments...no, since we last spoke a lot of things have changed. Our Solar System is rather quite fortified now. The Asgard has a Task Force here and Earth has two operational starships of its own with two more being launched very soon."

"Wow," said Hermione blinking in astonishment. "Ok, but what about the Goa'uld Cargo Ship, it can cloak itself right?"

"We did have one incident of a Cargo Ship penetrating Sol, but this was before the Leap and we found it soon enough...since then the Asgard have been keeping a tighter Sensor picket all over Sol which has the ability to detect cloaked ships," he explained. It was a lot more complicated than that, since Harry doubted she would understand a Neutrino based sensor system.

"Ok, so that rules out them at least," said Hermione with a half sigh of relief.

There was the sudden noise like an extremely fast bee buzzing through the air, followed immediately by the tinkling sound of broken glass. Harry saw the empty glass that had held his water crumple into pieces as if in slow motion. He felt droplets of something wet and warm hit his face. He looked with wide near disbelieving eyes to Hermione opposite him and met her surprised eyes.

"Where did that blood come from?" she asked and promptly slumped out of her chair like a puppet which strings had been cut.

_MOVE! _Shouted Egeria.

He flung himself to ground out of his chair and kicked upward, sending the table cantering on its side.

There was another buzzing sound and a thin hole appeared in the wood of the table, he had guessed correctly about the general direction and the temporary shield had done its job and the sniper missed by a half a meter to the left.

He flung himself forward towards Hermione and sent a mental scream towards the AI in his chromesuit. There was a flash of white light and they both vanished.

Leaving bedlam and cacophony in their wake...and blood.

_A/N: I'm terrible yes. A cliffie. But I couldn't resist it. It's in retribution for the cliffies so many of my other fav authors have seen fit to heap upon me in their stories_ _recently. Hmmph._


	35. Chapter 35

_**Chapter Thirty-Five – Full Circle**_

'_Harry, if you are watching this…then most likely I am either dead, or have been injured to such an extent that I am of no help to you; with what is undoubtedly a conspiracy that encompasses an entire continent.'_

He stood in the main Holographic Room on board the _Achilles_; his face dark and drawn with anger as he watched the flat floating image of Hermione; she was as beautiful as ever, sitting on a couch somewhere (most likely her flat or home) in front of a digital video camera. Her face was also a picture of worry though and she looked rather strained as she talked. She again talked of the kidnappings; how 'magical' means were used to abduct children without them even knowing it was happening, as their 'parents' coming to pick them up were the kidnappers disguised.

'_At first I thought it could be a 'dark wizard' conspiracy; there are still some Death Eaters at large and a few minor Pureblood Supremacy groups…and the Great Leap could've caused them to do this in some misguided attempt to either figure out how 'Muggles' suddenly became wizard…or to figure out how to undo it. But then I noticed that the kidnappers are quite verse in circumventing standard security technology protecting their targets…they hack and disable CCTV monitors at the schools if they have them…they are able to drive cars…and so on.'_

**That made sense **thought Harry, a traditional wizard or Descendant wouldn't know the first thing to do when getting behind the wheel of a car.

'_Therefore my search turned to the greater world; since everything now pointed to the fact that it was former 'Muggles'….arggh, I hate using this old terminology…using their new powers in criminal enterprise. And since the Police is still playing catch-up with Auror's being assigned to them and training them…it's leaving a major open playing field for criminals. So now you ask 'Isn't this just exactly that? Criminals flexing their new metaphysical muscles. No. The organization and number of the kidnappings within a limited time frame indicates that a group with significant resources and numbers is behind this. I can't be exact but I believe forty seven children have vanished in this fashion._'

Harry's eyes widened at that number. What on Earth? Why wasn't this making the news? Was nothing being done?

'_I've consulted with Albus on this. And while we can't afford to rule it out yet; the 'people' you mentioned when we last met might be involved.'_

**Sorry Hermione, no Goa'uld involved in this one**, he thought.

'_He also mentioned that I mustn't completely rule out that the traditional wizarding world did not have a part in these kidnappings. Which makes sense since these criminals had to be using Polyjuice on more than one occasion and the rate of the kidnappings could indicate they're using Portkeys or even Side-Along Apparition to move about in addition to normal cars. Also an interesting thing to note is that the criminals would use a car that matched the family's one exactly…even reproducing the correct license plates._'

'_It boggles the mind that Interpol is not all over this, and I've even been to their offices here in the UK and submitted the information I have on all this. They said they would get back to me. They never did. Not a few days later I noticed I was being followed, I manage to give them the slip every time but the moment I show my face in public I'm latched onto again. It only further points to wizard involvement_.'

'_I can only conclude that Interpol has been infiltrated in some fashion and my information never reached the upper-echelons. Therefore I am now turning it over to you, in the hope that you can make use of your connections with the American government to somehow intervene or do something to retrieve these children.'_

'_Attached to this digital disk you will find an encrypted file with all the information I have, included in it is the only lead I have which might send you on a path to find the kidnappers. To open this file you need a password…since it's also possible this disk might be land into unfriendly hands. You will need to solve this riddle get it._

_'Tis the end and the beginning._

_'Tis moving on._

_Only the worthy achieve_

_No words can describe._

'_Goodbye, Harry. I sincerely hope we are both watching this, laughing at my overly paranoid precautions._

_With all my love,_

The holographic screen faded into nothingness and he bowed his head and stared at the small bloodstained digital disc sitting on the Interface pedestal in front of him. He removed it and clenched it in his fist. He resolved to himself that if he had to he would turn Europe upside down and inside out if it meant finding the bastards that did this. And to that end, he needed to pay a visit to an acquaintance.

88888888888888888888888888

**Washington D.C.**

In a rather ordinary supermarket in the city of American government, two men could be seen idly browsing the dairy section. If you looked at them, you would conclude that it was but a chance meeting of two very different men, looking to buy groceries. They were also a study of contrasts; one was dressed as if he had just come from a business boardroom with a long overcoat with well-styled dark blonde hair and had an ordinary build, the other dressed in jeans, t-shirt and sneakers was a picture of casualness, but looked like he either frequented a gym a lot or was a serious athlete. If you also looked closely you could see their lips were barely moving…they were talking…yet no sound betrayed that a conversation was taking place.

If you were to stand right next to them though, you would be disabused of that notion.

"You're certain of this?" said Special Agent O'Day.

"As certain as the sniper's bullet that tried to take me out in London," replied Harry, picking up a carton of milk and examining it as if he was checking to see its contents table. "I only have two leads that I was hoping you could give me your opinion on."

"And they are?"

Harry turned the milk carton and a small piece of paper was trapped between it and his thumb, there was a drawing on it. The instant O'Day saw it he stiffened and blinked in alarm. "You know this symbol?"

"Unfortunately I do," sighed O'Day. He put down the bottle of yogurt and walked casually to Harry's other side to examine the cheeses. "Where did you obtain that?"

"At one of the schools the kidnappers made a mistake," explained Harry, putting down the milk carton and crumbling the piece of paper in his hand, Vanishing it into the ether of the Universe, before pretending to examine the rest of the stand. "The school had just installed a surveillance system the day before it happened. They didn't know that they were caught on film."

"But from what you told me, surveillance would be irrelevant with the metaphysical means they are using to impersonate others," reasoned O'Day.

"It would, however, on this occasion I believe they ran out of Polymorphic, because they only had Visual Glamors applied to their faces…the camera caught that symbol tattooed on the flesh between the thumb and forefinger of one of the kidnappers."

"Must've been hard to enhance that from a grainy surveillance camera," commented O'Day.

"It was easy, now can we get to the part where you tell me what you know?" said Harry dryly.

"I will, but first tell me the other lead you had?"

"That all the children were six to seven years old, the implications of which is not good," said Harry darkly. "At that age a child's most basic cognitive and spatial abilities are still a blank slate, they can be molded into anything with the right stimulus."

O'Day sighed and looked to be burning some serious neurons as he seeming wrestled with himself. "If my Director ever found out I was divulging this to you he would tear me a new one, even though you technically have clearance, but the thought of unleashing you on this 'organization' that tried to take you out is enough to give me goosebumps."

"So?" asked Harry pointedly.

"They call themselves The Triad," explained O'Day. "Now this isn't the Chinese Triads I'm talking about…they're only concerned with their local communities and operate more like street gangs. _The_ Triad; is an alliance of disaffected former Soviet spymasters and scientists that went into business for themselves in the early nineties using any assets they could leverage during the collapse of the Soviet Union. Now they're into blackmail, corporate espionage, extortion, covert weapons development, you name it."

"Interesting, in the Chinese sense of the word," said Harry thoughtfully. "I suppose there's no head office for these guys, otherwise you would've probably parked a cruise missile through their window already?"

O'Day laughed. "Quite right, no, we don't know where they're located, but we do know they operate in cells scattered all through Eastern Europe mostly. We have 'probable' locations on one or two of them, but nothing substantiated."

"Do they have a computer network?"

"Yes, but it's on an isolated backbone, and the only server access points are in the 'cells' themselves."

Harry considered this for a moment, "very well, can you get me those locations, it seems I have a long night of scanning from orbit ahead of me."

O'Day blinked as if startled and Harry imagined that a lightbulb had just blinked on above his head. "Oh, I am so going to put forward a proposal for a dedicated Intelligence ship…do you have any idea how many problems we could solve with a ship that has the scanning capabilities of a Prometheus class?"

"I can imagine," said Harry as he moved along the freezer. "Although if something like that happens you will have to share such a ship with other Intelligence services. It's only fair."

"Awww, too bad, anyway, you'll have the locations by this afternoon, meet me at our secondary rendezvous."

With that O'Day walked away with a packet of cheese slices in his hand and headed in the direction of the tellers.

88888888888888888888888888

**Czech Republic, Prague**

Walking over the majestic Charles Bridge that provided passage over the Vltava River, Harry appreciated the magnificent sight before him; it was easily the most impressive castle besides Hogwarts that he had ever seen…and in the light of the setting sun added to the artificial flood lights that lit the grand structure in a blue glow, it made the place seem 'magical' in a way just like Hogwarts itself.

St. Vitus Cathedral, according to his tour book, towered out of Prague Castle and was the tallest structure within it. Surrounding it was the tall flanks of the Castle itself dotted with numerous windows along seven floors. And since past kings had held residence and office there, it had to be the most prominent thing in the skyline, situated on a hill looking down on what was now known as the Little Quarter of the city.

He looked down into his tour book, contemplatively scratching his short gray beard; part of a disguise to make him look like any other tourist (an overweight old man, retired, and using his pension to see the world) walking through the streets of Prague.

O'Day's intel suggested that a Triad cell was located somewhere in the New Town section of Prague, just across the river. Harry could see why the FBI NSB thought so; the Main Train station was within spitting distance of it, it contained the Prague National theatre, Old Town Square and numerous other places that allowed you to blend into the crowd and arrange covert meetings, and finally the fact that Prague was a travel hub of sorts for those wanting to travel all throughout Europe.

Now added to this, were the scans Harry had done from orbit, which was further refined when he had gone on a walkabout throughout most of the past day using a handheld scanner concealed in a normal digital camera. He had also gone on the assumption that the Triad cell had traditional wizards in their employ, as such he had also used his Alteran senses to look for any form of Warding or Spells that had been set up.

In the end, he'd managed to narrow it down to one office building; from orbit he had detected the overly large amounts of mainframe computers inside and data bandwidth (not really suspicious in and of itself, but was perfect cover for sneaking your communications through the stream of data going in and out, fishing The Triad's communiqués out of it would've taken too long though); also tracking the lifesigns inside the building had yielded the fact that for two hours a group of sixteen of those lifesigns sat down in a room in a formation that suggested it was a classroom.

When Harry had passed the building on his walkabout, he also detected that nearly all the upper ten floors of the building were bustling with activity. Then there was the Ward he sensed placed on the whole building, a Selective Entrance Ward; the likes of which he had seen Death Eaters last use when they wanted only others like themselves pass through…a ward that was connected to the Dark Mark tattooed on their wrists. Clearly the tattoo on the kidnappers hand was more than just a mark of the Triad, it also served them to allow access into the Cell itself. It also had the added benefit that it wasn't powerful enough to render technology useless.

"Excuze me?" a voice interrupted his musings. It belonged to a tall, pale man with a rather disarming face, whose black hair, whilst not as messy as Harry's own, certainly gave it good run for its money.

"Yes?" said Harry in a rough, old voice.

"I vaz vondering if you could ztake a picture of my wive and me?" said the stranger, his accent definitely marked him as a local. The wife in question was an attractive woman, standing at about a head shorter than her husband, with fading blonde to black hair that looked like it was dyed often, her most striking feature was her sapphire blue eyes.

"Certainly, I'd be happy to, not much sunlight left though," said Harry, adopting an easy friendly tone and accepting the camera handed to him.

"Zat is no problem, my wivez glow will light us all," said the husband, his wife beamed at the compliment.

"I'm not sure the camera is capable of picking it up," said Harry sadly.

"But its no ordinary camera," said the husband meaningfully. His eyes narrowed at Harry in confusion all of a sudden. "You are not as O'Day described you."

"I am very good at disguises," replied Harry; the couple now identified as his contacts in Prague, posed and he quickly took a photo and returned the camera. "Why are we talking out here?"

"I am carrying a RF and sound jammer," said the wife, almost no hint of an accent. Harry nodded and put away the special tour book that had been used to identify him to the pair of Intelligence agents.

"Shall ve?" gestured the husband, towards the New Town side of the Bridge and they set off on a seemingly leisurely walk. "I am Mr Viktor Zarkov and this is Mrs Svetlana Zarkov, FSB."

"If we are going to play the alias game, then I am Mr Neville McDonald, Agent of Her Majesty's Government," said Harry wryly,

"How did you know they are not our true names?" asked Viktor curiously, his accent had also now diminished.

"I can tell when someone is lying to me," replied Harry with a shrug.

"Useful skill," commented Svetlana carefully.

They turned off the Bridge and continued to follow the street leading parallel to the river.

"I have the location of the cell," stated Harry next.

"And you would give it to us?" asked Viktor, his eyes narrowing in thought. "Or perhaps it is that you need help, and that is why you asked our mutual friend for a meet with us?" Harry snorted, the guy was perceptive, he'd give him that.

"The amount of manpower within the cell precludes a covert entry, plus they have metaphysical protection," explained Harry.

"Which you can deal with…naturally," stated Svetlana, arching an eyebrow. Harry only nodded, he had to be very careful around these two spies, they were trying to bait reactions out of him. It was to be expected in fact, since even though they weren't mortal enemies, they considered him to be their 'competition' from another Intelligence Agency.

"What do you wish from us then in exchange for the cell's exact location?" asked Viktor.

Harry told them.

"Ambitious," said Svetlana with a small smile.

"Coordinating such a thing is difficult at best," said Viktor, "but if we can move quickly enough here before this cell can send the word out…it should be possible."

"So you agree?" asked Harry.

"We will require at least a day," nodded Viktor.

Harry shifted uncomfortably in the all black conforming nomex suit he was wearing, and had resist the urge to scratch through the uncomfortable ski mask. The only familiar adornment on his person was the tactical vest, but the Hechler MP-10 submachine gun clipped to it was a type of weapon he had never used before. He stood next to Viktor and Svetlana, who were similarly outfitted, except their faces were unmasked, for the purposes of briefing the ten-man Spetznaz team.

It was a team that Viktor had managed to finagle from the FSB.

'**I guess the Russians are serious about bringing down the Triad**,' said Egeria.

All of them were congregated around a small table with maps and all available blueprints of the building out of which _Prague Shipping_ operated; the front company the Triad cell was hiding under. They were gathered in what was the basement of a moldy old warehouse on the outskirts of Prague that Harry was sure dated all the way back to the early fifties.

Viktor was conducting the briefing in Russian, but Svetlana was translating for Harry in an undertone as her husband spoke.

'Whilst our primary objective will be the gathering of hard intel on the locations of all other Triad cells, this will also be a rescue mission, and that is why our British friend is here,' said Viktor gesturing to Harry. 'There are forty-seven children being indoctrinated to become Triad operatives in the future. Therefore you must make sure of your targets, no shooting through those thin office walls in the hopes of hitting the enemy before he sees you. He is also here because of the metaphysics the cell is using to protect itself. He will be disabling it before we can proceed to raid the building. He will also be taking point…'

The Captain of the Spetsnaz team visibly protested and babbled a long string of what had to Russian expletives. Viktor tolerated it for a few moments, before uttering a harsh reprimand and what seemed to be a distinct threat. The Captain bit off his protests instantly.

'He will be on point, end of discussion,' said Viktor coldly. 'There are skilled meta's inside and under Triad employ, so if any of you can stop some guy with Telekinesis from ripping your weapon out of your hands, then speak up and you will be on point."

None of the team spoke.

'Good, Captain you have the objectives, this is your show from here," said Viktor and handed the briefing over. The Captain gestured curtly for Harry and Svetlana to come closer.

'He says to listen closely and pay attention," translated Svetlana. 'His team has been working and fighting together for two years, to him you're a liability to that unit cohesion. So despite you being on point, you will do as he commands.'

"Understood," nodded Harry.

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It was late night and he would have stood out like a sore thumb in all his combat gear if he hadn't been disillusioned. He was crouching against the east wall of the Prague Shipping building that faced an alley bordering the neighboring building. Multiple garage roller doors for the loading and unloading of goods towered ominously over him and the rest of the disillusioned Spetsnaz assault team in a line behind him. Despite this, Harry could still see them easily.

Harry tapped the Captain on the shoulder to indicate he was ready and then took a deep breath and reached out with his hands towards the edge of the Wards. His hands pushed against it like there was invisible glass and abruptly the Ward flared into the green edge of the spectrum as he connected his will and power to it. He noticed that a few of the assault team were rather stupefied…since despite them being technically 'wizards' this was the first time they had actually witnessed a raw demonstration of the power.

He turned his focus now onto the intent behind the Wards and his mind rendered them into Alteran characters. A single glance at them told him that whoever had done this was quite good. The Ward even covered the loophole of creating a new entrance by use of precision explosives, entrance from the roof by air and so forth.

Getting rid of the Ward by overpowering it was entirely feasible, but then the Warder and his Triad wizard buddies would come running. Confounding the Ward to make them think that Harry and the Spetsnaz team were part of the Triad and allowed entrance would be all the better, but take much longer.

'**There is no hurry Harry, we're not on the clock**,' said Egeria in amusement.

'**Adopting Jack's manner of speech so does not suit you,**' he countered.

He began slowly, adjusting the Ward, bit by bit, carefully checking his work so he didn't create a cascade conflict…if Sam could've seen this she would be amazed how much it resembled programming, which from a certain point of view was exactly what a Ward was…a delineated section of space altered and programmed to behave in a certain way by the Caster. Harry was changing it by 'hacking' into and altering the base code, much a like a computer virus would.

It took nearly twenty minutes before he felt confident enough to try and push his hand through the Ward.

It went through, but to go through now would've been like trying to walk through water under high pressure.

He returned to the Ward and another fifteen minutes of alterations allowed his hand to move freely and smoothly through the perimeter.

Harry tapped the Captain three times to indicate success and they advanced forward. Harry had altered the disillusionment so that the team could see each other but no one else could…the only downside was that it wouldn't last as long as the standard spell matrix.

He brought his silenced MP10 against his shoulder and advanced to the other side of the garage doors. It was now the Spetsnaz team's chance to shine as they efficiently disabled the alarm sensors attached to the door, and sprayed a thick foaming substance onto the steel of the door in a large rectangle shape that congealed instantly into putty. A small fuse was inserted into it and lit. The chemical reaction that occurred next with a hissing sound was so hot that it instantly melted through the steel. A suction cup that had been attached beforehand prevented the newly cut steel door from falling inward and giving them away.

Once the steel was out of the way, Harry led the way into a loading bay filled with boxes and overhead gantries for moving them. A nearby supervisor's office with wide windows for looking out onto the bay was filled with the snoring of what looked to be the night shift security guard. He rushed to the open door and with a gesture the guard was ensured of another five hours of guaranteed sleep, no matter what stimulus was applied to him.

He appropriated the keycard badge from the now deeply sleeping man and rushed out. He led the team up a metal staircase and turned left to storm down a catwalk, where the first magnetically sealed door was. A swipe of the keycard later and the team entered into a hallway on the second floor.

This was where, despite being disillusioned; the sound of their feet could give them away to any passing guard. The combat boots they were wearing were soft-soled grooved rubber, and should they move slowly enough it wouldn't be a problem. Harry hadn't applied Silencing fields to their feet, since there was no guarantee that the wizards or anyone else for that matter, wouldn't be able to sense it; he was pushing their luck as it was with the disillusionment.

Hugging the wall they moved towards the central staircase, pausing only once for a bored looking security guard to come past. He noted that neither of the two guards they had seen had been carrying any weapon besides an electric prod. That would no doubt change once they reached the upper ten floors.

At this point the team split into two at an intersection between two corridors; five went left towards the Server room, whilst Harry, the Russian Captain and the four remaining spec-ops soldiers stopped at the stairwell door next to the elevator. Another swipe of the card opened it and they allowed themselves to move faster once inside.

Their luck held, as there were no guards patrolling the stairwell.

'**That's sloppy for an organization like the Triad, given what O'Day told us of them,**' said Egeria from within.

'**That means they're either overconfident in their secrecy or they have security that we can't see or know about.**'

He strained his metaphysical senses for the slightest minor energy flux or anything to indicate some form of trap…nothing.

It was when they reached the eleventh floor that Harry held up a fist to halt the team. The reason for the lax internal security was apparent now. The door leading onto the eleventh floor could've been used as an airlock on a starship or a Blast door. There was a retinal and handprint scanner to one side that governed access and a surveillance camera looking down on anyone who used them to get in. In addition the staircase that should've lead further up to the twelfth floor was walled off.

Harry glanced meaningfully at the Spetsnaz Captain and risked willing a Silencing Sphere around him and the team.

'There is no way we're getting through that without waking up the whole building,' whispered Harry.

'We use of surprise and blitz way through," said the Captain in broken English that indicated that while he knew it, he rarely had call to use it, "remember, people up here only desk trained analysts, field agents and security we must worry, the metas are your job. How longer will our invisibility last?'

'Ten to twenty minutes,' said Harry after a glance at the team.

'Then do you want go or should we?" pointed the Captain at the Blast door.

'I'll do it.' He willed away the Silence Sphere and walked forward the final few steps until he was on the landing. He gestured for the soldiers to hug the wall as much as they could. Turning to face the door, his gathered his strength, and with a twist of will, helped by a small sweeping gesture the Blast door gave a moan of tortured metal before it was abruptly launched along with pieces of the concrete it was bolted into with terrible speed and smashed into the staircase leading further up.

Alarms instantly began to blare, echoing up and down the stairwell.

Harry led the charge onto the floor, leading with his MP-10 raised and sweeping right to left. A guard dressed in a rather formal looking suit and carrying a Steyr Aug assault rifle, was startled in surprise but got three silenced 10mm rounds through his face before he could even think to bring the weapon round.

He advanced to the other side of the elevator hallway, allowing the Captain and another two of his men to breach. Two more guards that came storming to the breach point met their end messily with bullets to the head.

The last three soldiers entered and they began a systematic advance, following a circuitous route of the floor. Any guard they encountered rushing down to the building's defense was instantly cut down by the Spetsnaz, Harry was not really relishing having to kill but it couldn't be helped in this situation; Stunned guards could be revived by the wizards here and they would then have to fight on two fronts.

With the disillusionment on them still active it was at the moment a sorely one-sided running battle. The analysts in their offices were all pretty much cowering under their desks. He could see some of them trying to phone out for help, but Viktor and Svetlana had arranged to have the building's outgoing phone calls intercepted.

There was a burst of Russian over the encrypted radio and Harry guessed that Team 2 must have just finished their raiding of the Triad mainframe and was heading up to support them.

It was at this point that things went somewhat sour.

Harry felt a spell washing over them from behind…and just like that the team was visible. He cursed and whirled around firing a near continuous stream of bullets towards down the hallway. Four of the bullets were stopped in midair and fell to the ground. Harry threw up a Shield with his off hand while letting the empty MP10 dangle off his chest.

His shimmering white Shield that fell from the ceiling was enough to stop the Disembowelment spell heading for the rearmost solider. Harry had briefed them on what to do. They rushed forward to get behind him, whilst three more distinctly dark spells strained against the shield.

Harry dropped the shield and deflected two spells by willing deflection shields around his hands and batting them away like beachballs. He went on the offensive by willing a sudden vacuum to appear in front of where he could feel his opponent…the Universe instantly reclaimed the void and the concussive shockwave radiated outward, picking up the wizard, sending him flying backwards to crash through a wall, whilst every single window on the floor shattered simultaneously. A quickly willed shield protected Harry and the Spetsnaz from the effects rather snugly.

"He is out?" asked the Captain curtly.

"Yes," said Harry, and led the way. The soon found an inner staircase that was not on the building schematics, but was clearly what allowed the cell to move up and down the building besides using the secure elevator.

On the next floor the team battled against five guards who were working together and coordinating their movements. As the advantage of invisibility was gone, this evened the playing field in theory, but with Harry's presence resistance was rather futile. He cast a Deceleration Shield; it was a shield that merely consisted of steeply inversing the flow of gravitons within a space of one centimeter. This caused the bullets fired by the enemy to simply stop in midair.

It was at this point that Team 2 caught up with them and joined in the firefight, which swiftly turned in their favor.

The third floor they assaulted offered another wizard with another four guards and one Triad agent. This was where the Spetsnaz showed their skill even more as they downed two guards with head shots before anyone could react.

Harry flung a bolt of Fire to get the wizard's attention (even though he was wearing normal clothes he had a dark black wand held loosely in hand). The wizard ducked the fire as bullets traced lines of death around them.

Harry idly intercepted a few bullets that would've hit him in the chest, (and exposed his Alteran personal shield) and with a flick of the fingers shot them telekinetically towards the wizard who showed he was no slouch either by stopping them with a wave of his wand. He did the dumbest thing next when threw a Killing Curse at Harry.

Harry directed a nearby desk to come sailing into the path of the Curse and it exploded into kindling. He next made a grabbing gesture at wizard and out of nowhere crushing telekinetic forces converged on the wizard from all sides; his legs snapped like twigs and ribs broke. The wizard dropped limply to the ground screaming in pain, a Stunner provided him merciful unconsciousness.

The agent was the last one to go down, with a bullet that clipped him in the arm, he fell out from behind his cover and two bullets pierced him in the chest.

The fourteenth floor was devoid of guards or agents or even wizards, what it did contain, was enough to make Harry's blood boil. A large hall-like room held rather sterile like chrome tables…forty-seven of them, and upon each was strapped down one of the kidnapped children. He vaguely heard a few of the Spetsnaz assault team give angry invectives at what they were seeing.

Harry saw that the closest, a young six-year-old boy still dressed in his school uniform, was blankly staring up into some form of emitter that was shining various wavelengths of light directly into his eyes, and over his ears were headphones. IV drips hung next to each feeding them goodness-knows-what directly into their bodies. He carefully approached the boy and placed a hand on his forehead and connected his essence to the boy's.

"By the Creator!" gasped Harry, jerking his hand away.

"What is it?" said the Captain.

"His will is not his own," growled Harry darkly. "His mind is also being…shaped, is a way of putting it, into what the Triad wants." He pulled off the earphones and listened briefly to a voice in English describing various metaphysical concepts of Thought Construction…or Transfiguration as it was commonly known, clearly the wizards had been busy.

"The IV' s?"

Harry pulled out his Alteran Hand Scanner (suitably disguised to look Terran made) and took a few readings. "It's seems to be part of a regimen to refine and perhaps boost their metaphysical potential they will gain in later life."

"Let's get them out of here," said the Captain firmly and gestured to some of his men to watch their backs.

"Ok, but don't remove the IV's merely detach them from their stands and place the bags on the children's chests, it's possible interrupting the treatment they are getting will kill them," explained Harry when he saw the objection rise on the Captain's face.

'Very well," he nodded. The remaining soldiers all interspersed among the recumbent children and began to affix small glowing tags to them. Gunfire that erupted from the covering team, outside in the hallway, spurred them on to work faster. Any soldier that used up his assigned tags rushed towards the hall entrance to add his firepower to the defense.

Finally, all the children were marked.

Harry reached into a pouch of his tactical vest and touched a finger to the Asgard jewel device. Abruptly flashes of white light accompanied by the musical whine of the Transporter snatched away the children, after a few seconds, it was over and no children remained.

"Order your soldiers to say the keyword," said Harry, running towards the entrance. The Captain babbled an order and the Spetsnaz soldiers began to vanish with displaced pops of air. Harry nodded to the Captain and the man reached for a thick bag strapped to his pack and undid it, he pulled a pin on it and said 'Dazvidanya' and vanished leaving the bag on the floor.

"Goodbye," said Harry softly, and he was whisked away in a flash of white light, a second later the satchel charge exploded, leaving the Prague Shipping building nothing more than a collapsed ruin.

**Headmaster's Office, Hogwarts, Somewhere Unplottable in Scotland**.

Harry stood in his disguise of Mr McDonald and enjoyed the scenery out of the window of a vital, renewed and rebuilt Hogwarts. Fawkes the Headmaster's phoenix, sat on Harry's shoulder preening himself and occasionally giving an affectionate nibble to his ear.

"**Such a fascinating creature, it is remarkable than an avian species could also evolve to a metaphysical level,**' commented Egeria happily. **'The feeling of peace it inspires in those of good heart is amazing as well.'**

Harry inwardly agreed and idly scratched the phoenix on its head to return the gesture of affection.

The door to the headmaster's office opened and Albus Dumbledore entered with a huff, looking slightly out of breath. The Headmaster was looking as vital as ever, despite looking old with his long white beard and wrinkled face.

"I hope the children are all right?" said Harry, not turning around but keeping his gaze fixed on the lush grounds of Hogwarts and the magnificent view of the lake.

"They are well…my friend, Madam Pomfrey is tending to them, they are in the best of hands," said Dumbledore, a knowing amusement laced his voice. "And she told me to tell whoever dumped her young patients on her lap that she would prefer a little warning first.'

"I'll make a note of that," said Harry, turning finally to face the old wizard. H_e's still going with the ridiculous star and moon-patterned robes…_he chuckled to himself. "It's good to see you again, Albus."

"And you, as it were," said Dumbledore with a twinkle to his eyes, which faded slightly. "Hermione?"

"This thing is not over yet," said Harry meaningfully. "And I had to battle two dark wizards to free these children. It is entirely possible that there are more out there working with the same organization."

"She is dead then," nodded Albus sadly. "I will make the necessary arrangements."

"Thank you," said Harry gratefully. "Can you extend Hogwart's protection to these children?"

"I've already told the elves to convert the once abandoned third floor to living quarters for them," nodded Albus.

"Good, I have posted letters to the parents informing of their children's rescue, they will no doubt want to see them as soon as possible."

"I will in turn send Hogwarts letters to them, that can only be opened by the addressee, instructing them on the best method to get here."

Harry gave a slight nudge of his shoulder and Fawkes squawked in protest and grudgingly with a flap of wings returned to his perch.

"How long will it take?" asked Albus with a frown.

"I'm assisting the Intelligence agencies involved, if all goes well, perhaps a month maybe less, there are a lot unknowns involved in this. We will see."

"Then I shall not keep you any longer," said Albus, "but it was good to see you again."

Harry smiled and vanished.

**SGC, Earth**

Jack O'Neill blew out a breath of weariness as he approached the Level 19 elevator, swiped his card, and pressed the 'down' button. He really had to speak to Hammond about this latest duty he and SG1 had been assigned; what basically amounted to babysitting the _Deadalus_. Sure, they were a green ship, with a green crew, that hadn't yet seen combat against the Goa'uld. Apparently the powers-that-be in the STO wanted the ship's eventual trial by fire to go smoothly by having SG1 (we who pull miracles out of our butts) along in case something unforeseen happened.

The elevator door opened and he was surprised to see Ambassador Potter inside. The man was coated in that cool bodysuit of his and merely raised an eyebrow in greeting.

"You're back," stated Jack obviously and walked into the elevator.

"Had to deal with a situation on our fair planet," commented Harry vaguely. Jack saw a look on the man's face he hadn't expected, and it was a rather familiar one; it was the one that he sometimes saw in the mirror in his own dark moments; when he remembered all those horrible missions…the ones when friends didn't come home.

"Can you talk about it?"

Harry opened his mouth to speak, but seemingly stopped himself. "Maybe another time."

Jack grunted knowingly. Any further conversation was interrupted when the lights in the elevator went out and with a sudden jerk it came to an abrupt halt in its journey down to level twenty-eight. Jack frowned in puzzlement and reached forward to the control panel for the emergency phone and held it to his ear.

"Hello? This is C…Hello?" There was no answer, the phone was dead.

"Jack, Harry Hi," said a voice that couldn't be there. He blinked and turned around. There was Daniel Jackson; looking rather vital, wearing a cream colored sweater, pants and no glasses. He could see that Harry was looking rather astonished at Daniel's sudden appearance in the cramped elevator. "Abydos is in trouble," continued Daniel looking rather unconcerned at the effect of his appearance, "Anubis is on his way. He's after the Eye of Ra. I have a replica that Catherine gave me, it looks like this." Daniel held up a golden medallion that held the symbol of the fallen Supreme System Lord carved in relief upon its surface. "Now, I'm pretty sure the real one is located on secret chamber in Ra's pyramid on Abydos but I'm not sure where exactly. According to legend there were six Eyes including those held by Apophis, Osiris and Tiamat among others. Each is powerful on its own but to use them in combination increases that power ten fold. Recently, Anubis has managed to track down five of the six Eyes and only needs Ra's to complete the set. He's looked everywhere Ra used to hang out except Abydos; now he's on his way there."

Jack felt a sudden bemusement overcome him as his brain latched onto the first explanation he could think of, and put the telephone back in its cradle. "I'm sure that was an aspirin I took this morning."

"It's really Daniel, Jack," said Harry, who had seemingly recovered his poise and was now looking rather upset for some reason.

"He's right," nodded Daniel, "it is me and you both have to help, you have to find the Eye of Ra before Anubis does. Keep it, hide it, destroy it, whatever, it doesn't matter, we don't have much time."

Jack felt rather irked at that moment and decided to that his cosmically inclined friend deserved some of his trademark ire.

"Hey Daniel, how you doing? Long time. How are things on the higher planes?"

Daniel grimaced at himself and glanced at the stares he was getting from Jack and Harry; and seemingly totally changed his tack to the entire conversation.

"Hey Jack, Harry, long time no see. H..h..h..how you both doing?"

"Fine, just fine," said Jack.

"Peachy," said Harry shortly.

"Right, right, right, so what's new?"

"Uhm…actually a funny thing happened to me, today. I'm riding an elevator and an old friend of mine, someone who never calls, never writes…just shows up and tells me all about this very important and apparently urgent mission that needs our attention," said Jack wryly.

"So you gonna help or…" said Daniel, wincing.

"No, wait, wait! Let me tell it, it's good. You see this buddy of mine, this pal, this chum has…ascended to a whole new level of existence. Do you see the irony? He's asking for my help and he's this great and powerful being."

"A great and powerful being who is not allowed to interfere on our plane of existence," said Harry meaningfully.

"Yes," nodded Daniel, "there are rules and just talking to you both is a violation."

"And you're breaking them because of Abydos' peril," stated Harry with a sigh.

"Yes," said Daniel, lowering his head.

"What does Oma have to say about this?"

"She doesn't know I'm here," said Daniel, shifting on his metaphysical feet and having a supremely guilty look on his face.

"How can she not know?" asked Jack with a frown. "She and you are these massively powerful beings."

"She doesn't know," insisted Daniel. "Oma has taught me that ascension doesn't make you all knowing or all powerful. It is just the beginning of the journey. The point is, if I were to help you, if I were to take any action to help you, Oma would know at once and step in and stop me herself to avoid drawing the wrath of the other Ascended. If they wanted to, they could stop everything she's been trying to do for a long, long time."

The lights in the elevator came on and started to move again.

"I can't jeopordise that," said Daniel darkly.

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**SGC, Briefing Room 1**

Harry was seated around the conference table with, General Hammond, Teal'C, Sam, and Jonas, whilst Jack was walking around delivering the intel they had gotten from Daniel.

"Now, apparently we can't afford the time for _Deadalus_ or _Prometheus_ to get to Abydos, Anubis would beat us there," said Jack.

"My ship is faster and could make it, but it's only one ship," said Harry, "given the fact that Anubis could throw a considerable fleet against us, we can't go toe to toe with him. Meaning we would merely need to have a small team go in and out for the Eye. We would also have backup from the Abydonians."

"Ambassador, how did you and the Colonel come by this intel?" said Hammond, his bafflement clear.

Harry opened his mouth to speak and considered how best to say this. "Daniel told us," he said simply.

"You saw Doctor Jackson?" said Jonas in astonishment, Sam gaped at them.

"Actually it's not the first time," admitted Jack. Harry looked in askance at the Colonel, _why hadn't he mentioned something like that before?_

'**He probably doubted whether anyone would believe him, look at Teal'C he seems quite unsettled,'** mused Egeria.

"Is he all right?" asked Sam, recovering herself.

"What else did he say?" asked Hammond in wonder.

"Whoa, wait…you guys don't think the Ambassador and I are nuts…or anything…like that?" said Jack. Harry rolled his eyes at the disbelief Jack was projecting.

"Thank you for that ringing endorsement of my sanity Jack," said Harry grumpily. "But it was Daniel for certain…I sensed that much…though probing him too deeply would've fried me…he _is _a being of pure energy after all."

"Anyway," said Jonas, bringing the conversation back on track, "did he tell you where specifically to find the Eye?"

"Uh, he doesn't know," said Jack.

"He doesn't know?" said Sam in bafflement.

"I know!" said Jack in astonishment. "Personally I think this whole ascension thing is a bit overrated."

"It's a matter of perspective," stated Harry. "Ascending like Daniel did is…not really recommended. It's best done after living a full lifetime, and any friend or family you'd have on this plane have passed on or already Ascended before you."

"So you wouldn't be tempted to come back," said General Hammond, looking thoughtful. "But anyway, Dr Jackson's word is good enough in my book. SG1 you're good to go as soon as you're ready. Ambassador…"

"I'll get ready too," said Harry with a nod. "I have a suspicion on what the Eyes actually are."

"Good," nodded Hammond. "Make sure you are all armed for bear."

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**Stargate Room, Ra's Pyramid, Abydos**

Harry walked out of the event horizon of the Abydos Stargate, arriving just behind SG1. A group of young Abydonians was already there and awaiting their arrival, all carrying the PR7s they had been gifted with by the SGC after they were liberated from Amonet. The weapons were all covered with tied cloths to help protect them from the sandy desert climate; which they didn't really need, as Harry had designed them to operate in any environment; but he remembered that the Abydonians didn't feel comfortable taking apart the weapons to clean them.

The young Abydonian who featured prominently in the lives of SG1 approached with a smile and hugged Jack.

"O'Nieer," smiled Skaara; his young desert brown face split in a delighted smile at seeing his friends. "It's good to see you."

"You too," smiled Sam.

"I'm Jonas," said the Kelownan, hooking his weapon to his chest armor and shaking the Abydonian's hand.

"Good to meet you," smiled Skaara. "Harree…"

"It's good to see you again," nodded Harry. "No one has had problems?" he gestured to the PR7s.

"No, no, you trained us well, thank you," said Skaara, bowing his head slightly.

"We are prepared to do whatever you ask," said another eager Abydonian, who Harry recalled was named Tobay.

"Appreciate that," nodded Jack, "Teal'C, set up a perimeter, I want to know the second we have company." Teal'C nodded and gathered Tobay and left with a lot of the other Abydonians, leaving only Skaara behind. "Any idea where this Eye thing is?"

"I will show you," nodded Skaara, and led the way towards a corridor off the arrival room. They followed the young Abydonian down it until they found wide stairs that led down. These stopped at a small dusty entrance that was edged with clotted sand. "This leads down into the catacombs. If it is anywhere it must be down here."

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When you think of catacombs you think of labyrinth mazes filled with decaying corpses, with deadly traps to stop looters, rats that scurry about everywhere, a general odor of decay that permeated the air. The Goa'uld idea of catacombs was rather different. They were a maze of passageways, but wide and open, instead of dead bodies they were filled with places where the Pharoah would stash his riches in hidden and safe places, they were also festooned with inscriptions, hieroglyphs and reliefs attesting to the great power of the Goa'uld in question. Skaara showed an uncanny knowledge of which direction to go, clearly he had learned a lot from when Daniel was in 'exile' here after very first Stargate mission.

The emerged into a wide, open room that seemed to Harry's eye to be large reliquary of sorts, filled with broken pottery, debris and the walls were again covered in murals and reliefs; they walked in lighting the torches on the walls as they went to get a good look at them.

"This is as far as the catacombs go, Daniel and I have spent much time here," commented Skaara.

"No Eyes?" asked Jack hopefully.

"The Eye of Ra is mentioned many times on these walls," said Skaara, gesturing with his torch.

"Just so we're clear. It's not a real eye. It's a kind of jewel or something," said Jack with a smile at his young friend.

"Well, we have never been able to find it," shrugged Skaara.

"The Eye is not a jewel," said Harry, aiming the torch on his PR8 to read the hieroglyphs on the walls.

"Then what is it?" asked Sam, walking along and also studying another part of the walls.

"I've had a suspicion, since Daniel mentioned it and how Anubis needs all six, about what it actually is," said Harry distractedly, reading the walls. "And now reading the descriptions on the walls…"

"Oh do share," commented Jack snarkily.

"Inside each Eye is a…well," stammered Harry, trying to find a way to put this so Jack and the rest would understand. "Think of each Eye as a tiny artificial Universe in a bottle."

"You're kidding," said Sam, amazed.

"No, I'm not," said Harry darkly. "They're used as a power source, what you call Zero Point Energy, is extracted from this artificial Universe."

"The potential energy of that is…" said Sam, aghast.

"I know," said Harry, "now with each successive Eye you place within any system, the energy potential is increased exponentially. Sort of like how working together they are more than the sum of their parts."

"And they can be used in a weapon system?" asked Jack with a frown.

"It's conceivable," nodded Harry.

"I think it's more likely that Anubis will use the Collective Eyes to power a command class mothership," opinioned Jonas, also reading along the walls. "With such an energy reserve the ship would have formidable power, speed and shields and easily be able to outgun even a fleet of Ha'taks."

"And on that cheerful note," said Jack merrily, "I will let you two brains try to find this out. I will be over here with Skaara, catching up." He scurried to the stairs leading out of the room with Skaara and sat down.

Harry rolled his eyes and continued to move along the wall, reading as fast as he could. But everything he saw merely waxed poetic about the great and powerful Ra, his accomplishments, the size of his domain, blah, blah, nothing on the walls indicated or even hinted where a secret chamber could be. He grunted in annoyance and pulled out his hand scanner and reached where Jonas was working.

"Already conceding defeat, Ambassador?" asked Jack, walking over.

"The writing on the walls won't explicitly say 'There's a secret chamber here.' Jack," groused Harry, staring at the readings.

"Would kind of defeat the purpose," commented Jonas.

"Just to remind you two, that we don't have all day," said Jack tapping his watch meaningfully.

They had barely gotten back to work when suddenly dull thumps echoed through the room from the ceiling.

"Perfect, just great," snarled Harry, tapping the scanner.

'_O'Neill, we are under attack! Ground forces have landed. We will not be able to hold them off for long,' _screeched Teal'C voice over the radio.

"Roger that," confirmed Jack into his radio. "You heard the man."

"There's localized shielding in the walls, my scanner is only getting refracted," groused Harry, slamming the device back into its slot on his armor.

"If Dr Jackson were here,…" said Jonas helplessly with a shrug.

"Oh, he's here," disagreed Jack with a frown, scanning the room around him, "he's definitely here. Trust me, he's here."

Nothing happened.

The sounds of the battle raging overhead continued to thump into the room.

"Son of a…Hey! Where are you? We're only doing this because of you," shouted Jack to the ceiling.

That seemed to do the trick because Daniel was suddenly there among them, wearing Abydonian desert robes.

"Jack!" said the Ascended being. "It's here, I know it is."

"Daniel!" said Sam in amazement, walking up to him.

"Sam, Jonas," he nodded warmly at them, but it was clear that he was harried and pressed for time.

"Dr Jackson," greeted the Kelownan with a slightly amazed look.

"You hear that?" said Jack accusingly, pointing at the ceiling and the raging battle between the Abydonians and Teal'C against Anubis' forces.

"I can't do anything about that, you know," said Daniel sadly.

"I don't care," snapped Jack. "Do something or we walk. Right now."

"I'm walking a fine line, Jack," said Daniel gravely.

"Cross it," insisted Jack.

Daniel turned away and sighed, before returning to face them all.

"Okay," he acceded and walked towards another part of the room, to a wall facing to the east, everyone following in his wake. "I always thought there might be a secret chamber here. This section talks about how Ra draws his power from the sun."

Harry glanced at the relief sculpture on it and was intrigued. It showed a giant red sun, with rays shooting out towards a large depiction of Ra below. "That would sort of make sense, since the Eyes are technically a power source."

"_O'Neill we cannot hold our position,_" reported a frantic sounding Teal'C on the radio.

"Fall back into the pyramid," ordered Jack, he turned to them. "You guys do your stuff, I'm gonna help Teal'C."

"I will come with you," said Skaara determinedly, and both left for the upper pyramid.

"Harry, why don't you try walking through the wall with the phaseshift," suggested Sam.

"Good idea, but I can bring both of you along as well, as long as you hold my hands."

He held out hands to both of them, and they took them without hesitation. The wall in front of them suddenly began to distort and wobble and without pause Harry stepped through the distorted matter.

The three of them emerged into complete darkness, which was only pierced by the shafts of light from their weapons. They spread out and found the nearest torches on the wall and lit them. They were inside a much smaller rectangular room, with a large stone table in the middle, and shelves on the walls, but it was what was on them that made all the difference.

"Jackpot," said Jonas with a smile. Sam grinned in bemusement at him.

There were all sorts of golden artifacts strewn everywhere in the room, here and there were also small tablets of writing and naquadah black objects and figurines.

"Let's get started," said Daniel, who had again suddenly appeared out of nowhere with no warning and started to peruse the tablets of writing on the table.

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They had hardly even searched for ten minutes amongst the numerous artifacts in the room when the radio crackled to life.

'_Carter?'_ Jack's tone of voice clearly told the dire story that was unfolding upstairs.

"We've found the room, but still looking for the Eye, Sir," she responded.

'_Work faster._'

It then occurred to Harry that perhaps the shielding in the secret chamber itself was not as great. It was logical that you would go through the trouble of making the shielding the thickest where the most common areas are. He pulled out his scanner again and after a view taps on the device's touchscreen.

"Ah, here we go," said Harry.

"What is it?" asked Sam, walking over from the shelf she had been looking through.

"I'm picking up a faint energy signature behind that shelf," he pointed to a corner of the room. There was a shelf that held a few artifacts, behind which the wall held another cartouche of hieroglyphs. Jonas picked up an ornate golden rod and tapped the wall in question…there was a hollow space behind it.

"Ok, now how do we get rid of the wall?" asked Jonas with a frown.

"I wouldn't recommend firing your PR8, if the energy of the weapon hit the Eye…well, let's just say that I wouldn't want to be on this planet when that happened," said Harry faintly.

"I've been training with this," suggested Sam, patting the holster on her hip that held her Alteran Stun Rod.

"I think Harry should do it, Sam," said Daniel mildly, looking up from a small obsidian black tablet he was examining on the table. "It requires finesse, and I doubt that your two months can compare to his decade and more of training."

"Ok," she said easily, conceding the point.

Harry smiled at her and turned to face the wall, with a gesture to aid his will and focus, he _pulled_ with his mind and a small section of the wall shattered into dust and debris. Jonas walked forward and reached into the now exposed cubicle in the wall, cleared out some more debris until he revealed something round and gold. He carefully pulled it out.

The Eye of Ra was slightly bigger than a compact disk in diameter, and about two inches thick. The Eye itself was inset in an ornate solid gold base, with the sect tattoo of Ra emblazoned on its dark red crystal surface.

"Amazing," said Sam, looking over Jonas' shoulder. "And there's a Universe in there?"

"An artificially constructed region of subspace-time," elaborated Harry further.

"Cool," she said.

"Not as cool as this," said Daniel, still looking at the small tablet but now in amazement. "This gives a brief history of the Alterans, how they evolved, it describes the plague…how they learned to ascend. It also speaks of a lost city."

"Lost city?" said Harry, rushing to the stone table to take a look at the tablet. "This is written in one of the oldest dialects of Alterran."

"Yes," nodded Daniel. "It doesn't say much more about it. But it seems that it's a definite starting point. Keep this tablet safe, it's more valuable than anything in here and…I have to go."

"Where?" asked Sam.

"I'll be back," said Daniel, whose form abruptly began to glow and shifted into an incorporeal white being of energy and vanished through the ceiling. Harry carefully wrapped the tablet and handed it to Jonas for safekeeping; since he was the one with the shockproof containers in his backpack.

They phaseshifted through the wall and entered the main chamber, however, they didn't even make it to the stairs, when Jack and Teal'C carrying a critically wounded Skaara came running down the other way.

"Too late," said Jack shortly.

"We could not hold the Gate room," said Teal'C stoically. "Anubis dialed the Stargate preventing our escape."

"We got Jaffa on our ass, where's that Eye?"

"Here, Sir," said Sam, handing the circular device over. Jack took it and pulled out a slab of C4 and affixed it to the Eye. In the meantime, Harry and Jonas had helped the semi-conscious Skaara who had sustained a staff weapon blast to his lower abdomen, and helped him to lie down next to a nearby pillar and out of the potential line of fire

By the time Harry looked up, the Jaffa of Anubis were already marching and securing the far side of the landing, where the stairs began. Harry and Jonas rushed to one side of the entrance to the chamber, whilst Sam and Jack the other and aimed their PR8s. Teal'C began to dress Skaara's wound.

The Jaffa saw the defensive SG1 had mounted and halted on the landing…clearly they were under orders not to risk damaging the Eye in a firefight.

Finally, a short yet bulky, blonde haired Jaffa with the distinctive glint of gold on his forehead arrived, Anubis' First Prime.

"Surrender or die!" ordered the First Prime

"What?" said Jack mockingly, poking his head out slightly.

"Surrender or die!" repeated the First.

"I was just gonna say the exact same thing," said Jack with a grin.

"O'Neill, of SG1," sneered the Jaffa Leader, a light of recognition in his eyes. Clearly Jack had run into this guy before somewhere.

"Hey, how you doing? You'll have to forgive me, I'm terrible with names. What was…"

Jack snapped his head back when a staff blast from the First exploded into the wall near his head.

"Jeez!" winced Jack.

"I am Herak," smirked the First Prime.

"Congratulations," said Jack mockingly, "failing upwards I see."

"You have no choice," snapped Herak.

"Actually I do. I've got the Eye and about a pound of very powerful explosives stuck to it. Give us clear access to the Gate or I'll blow it up," said Jack simply.

Harry rolled his eyes at that threat, but kept his peace with it.

"Yourself along with it?" sneered Herak.

"What's your point?" countered Jack, sounding dead serious.

Herak lost his sneer at that and a considering frown emerged on his pale face. "I will speak with my master."

"Yes, you do that. Don't forget to tell him you screwed up again," taunted Jack.

Herak whirled around and left, though his Jaffa escort remained, their Staffs ready and charged.

"Is it really necessary to further antagonize him?" asked Jonas plaitively.

"Yes," said Jack.

"Would you really do it?" asked Sam darkly.

"Sure, why not?"

"Ambassador," called Teal'C.

Harry turned and walked over to the Jaffa, who had finished dressing Skaara's wound.

"How is he?"

"Skaara is in need of medical attention," said Teal'C gravely.

"I have failed you all," moaned Skaara through his pain.

"You have not," disagreed Harry and knelt next to the prone Abydonian. "You have shown great courage, you have defied gods, Skaara, and you will not die. Not on this day. Not when it can be prevented." Harry placed a hand on the sweaty feverish forehead of the Abydonian and another on his chest. He took a deep breath and pulling from the energy of all things, directed it to the injuries on the young man. The harmful plasma in the wound vanished, cells began to rebuild themselves exponentially with the energy and will directing them to do so.

Harry snapped out of the Healing Trance and fell backward on his behind from the disoreniation and sudden lull in energy.

"The pain is gone," said Skaara in amazement, his voice full and strong again.

"Are you all right, Ambassador?" said Teal'C, the hint of awe present in his voice, placing a supportive hand on Harry's shoulder.

"Fine…just need to get my equilibrium back," said Harry, standing up and shaking his head to clear it.

"Thanks for that," said Jack solemnly as Harry returned to his position.

"He's a good kid and doesn't deserve to die like that," said Harry evenly and returned his attention to the Jaffa standing watch up the stairs.

It was a mere ten minutes later that the heavy booted footsteps returned and Herak stood on the landing again.

"O'Neill, can you hear me?"

"Yeah," griped Jack.

"Anubis commands that you turn over the Eye of Ra immediately or he will destroy all of Abydos," said Herak with a grin.

"Tell him to go ahead," retorted Jack, "he's not getting the Eye." He waved the Eye with explosive attached and remote detonator almost mockingly at Herak.

Harry frowned skeptically at Jack.

"He's bluffing," said the Colonel in response to the look.

"If we blow up the Eye he's going to destroy Abydos anyway," insisted Harry.

"He's just as likely to attack after we give it to him," retorted Jack.

"Got a point there," conceded Harry.

Teal'C joined the line of defense, after seemingly convincing Skaara to stay put and rest, since the Abydonian had lost his PR7 in the battle to keep the Gate room secure. Jack on the other hand, kept on waving mockingly at the Jaffa.

"Sir, you're not considering shooting our way out?" said Sam dubiously, since Jack was clearly trying to provoke the Jaffa.

"No. No, Anubis must really want that thing in one piece if his boys have held off this long," said Jack.

"He does," said Daniel, appearing again next to Skaara. "Thanks for healing him Harry."

"You're welcome."

"Where were you?" asked Sam in askance.

"Busy, busy," said Daniel gravely. "The situation in orbit has changed. Anubis' command ship is surrounded by a System Lord fleet led by Yu."

"So they've finally come to their senses," said Harry in dark satisfaction.

"Yes, they're opposing Anubis," nodded Daniel, "but…"

"But what?" asked Jack intently.

Daniel sighed and said, "Screw it, rules be damned, guys…Anubis is one of us."

"What?" said Jack in askance.

"At least partly," qualified Daniel hastily, "in some bastardized way…"

"Daniel, what are you talking about?" said Sam intently.

"The Goa'uld Anubis used to be figured out how to ascend."

"That's…that's…" spluttered Harry. "How is that possible?"

"I'm not sure exactly, yet," said Daniel, shaking his head.

"He was believed to have been dead for some time," reasoned Teal'C.

"The other Ascended didn't want him," continued Daniel.

"Understandable," snorted Jonas.

"They sent him back, at least they tried…but not all the way."

"What is he now?" asked Sam curiously.

"He's still a being of energy, but he's encased in a specially designed shield that allows him to interact with the physical world around him. He's stuck somewhere between the physical plane and ascension."

"Why have the other Ascended allowed him to remain like that?" demanded Harry, the anger in his voice made everyone wince.

"As I said, I don't know, maybe they couldn't exile him completely," suggested Daniel.

"That's crap, it's well within their capabilities to De-Ascend anybody, you're missing something Daniel," insisted Harry.

"Perhaps you're right," said Daniel thoughtfully, "either way as Anubis is now, he's still very powerful."

"It explains his mastery of Alteran technology," said Sam in realization.

"Ok, what's the plan then?" said Jack.

"I've warned the fleet of System Lord motherships surrounding Anubis, about the Eye and what it can do," explained Daniel.

"Nice," smirked Jack in approval.

"Turn it over," said the Ascended being abruptly.

"What?"

"I made a deal with Anubis, you turn the Eye over, you go free and the people of Abydos remain unharmed."

"You made a deal with Anubis? He can't be trusted!" said Harry.

"I'll make sure he keeps it. The Goa'uld are going to fight it out over the Eye and hopefully destroy each other in the process but even if they don't, while they're licking their wounds, you're gonna find the lost city of the Alterans."

"Lost city?" asked Jack.

"Didn't tell him about it?" said Daniel, turning to the others.

"Daniel found a tablet talking about a lost city," explained Sam.

"Where there are powerful Alteran weapons capable of giving you a big advantage over Anubis," explained Daniel.

"Do you know where it is?" asked Jack.

"No, but I'll help you find it. Jack, nothing will happen to the Abydonians, the most important thing right now is for you to get out of here with that tablet. If Anubis gets his hands on it and finds the lost city before you do, it's all over. He already has a huge advantage over you because of what the other Ascended have done or rather failed to do."

"You gonna kick his ass?"

"If I have to," said Daniel firmly.

"Can you?"

"We'll see, nothing will happen to the people of Abydos."

With that said Daniel vanished with a white swirl of energy.

"You heard the man, let's move out."

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Amazingly, the exchange of the Eye went off without a hitch. Herak merely sneered at SG1 and ordered his Jaffa to follow him…leaving them free to go.

"Well, spank me rosy! Let's book," grinned Jack and Skaara led them down an alternate route, just to avoid running into the Jaffa again. By the time they had arrived in the Gate room though, the Jaffa had already used the Ring Transporter. The first thing they noticed though was all the empty sets of desert clothes, robes and PR7s that were lying all about the room .

Harry knelt next to a set and saw the distinctive scorch mark of a staff weapon burn on the clothing and blood…yet no body.

"They all Ascended," he said in amazement.

"You think Daniel helped them?" queried Sam.

"It's possible, but I doubt it, since he himself was helped to Ascension I doubt he would be given the latitude for such things," reasoned Harry.

"Jonas, dail us up," ordered Jack, "before Anubis changes his mind."

It was as Jonas was pressing the coordinates at the DHD that Harry's scanner bleeped in warning.

"There must be one hell of a firefight going on up there for this little thing to register it," said Harry, tapping the scanner to record the readings for later analysis.

The Stargate sprang to life and Jack ushered everyone ahead of him. A rollercoaster ride through subspace later, Harry, Teal'C, Sam, Skaara and Jonas emerged back into the bustle of the SGC. They paused at the foot of the ramp though when it became apparent that something had delayed Jack stepping through.

Harry's eyes widened when saw that the event horizon destabilized for a moment and then renormalized itself.

_That's not good._

Finally, Jack stumbled through with an aura of dust hanging about him. "Raise Shield!"

The red glow of the shield whined into existence over the mouth of the Stargate and abruptly flashed white as it strained against a massive influx of energy and debris coming through the wormhole. It was enough even to overwhelm the seismic dampeners that kept the Stargate from shaking the whole base.

"Iris too!" yelled Sam to the Control room.

The trinium alloy iris slid closed and finally the path terminated and the ground stopped shaking under their feet.

"What just happened?" asked Jonas with concern.

"Abydos was hit," said Jack. "I felt it just before I came through."

"Sergeant, call up a full gate diagnostic," said Sam and hurried out the gate room, unlatching her weapon as she went.

Harry let them get on with it, but decided to remain in the gate room with the devastated Skaara; the young Abydonian's face was wet with tears, but yet he stood stoically looking into nowhere. He placed a hand on the young man's shoulder and met hit eyes.

"Remember that death is just the beginning of the journey, Skaara, your friends are all still with you in spirit…they are like Daniel now. Do you understand?"

Skaara nodded. "But if Anubis destroyed Abydos then I am the only survivor of my people," he said miserably.

"We don't know that for sure. We will return you to your people Skaara, even if we have to take you by ship."

The Stargate began to dial and cycle through the coordinates for Abydos again…fourth chevron, fifth, sixth…the seventh wouldn't lock.

"Ambassador Potter, please report to the Briefing Room," called the Sergeant over the PA.

"Come," said Harry, and guided Skaara out of the embarkation room.

General Hammond held the obsidian tablet with its wrapping open and gazed at it thoughtfully as Sam gave a general outline of events regarding the Eye of Ra.

"The only thing we can assume is that Anubis didn't keep his deal with Daniel," she concluded.

"That's a shock, eh?" said Jack wryly.

"And that Daniel Jackson was unable to prevent Anubis from detroying Abydos," stated Teal'C, everyone at the conference table gave sympathetic looks to Skaara, who was sitting in a chair and looking down into his own chest.

"Which leaves Anubis in possession of a powerful weapon that has given him clear superiority over the System Lords," said Hammond evenly.

"We don't know any of that for sure, Sir," said Jack.

"Then we better find out, for sure," stated Harry. "We need to send a ship to Abydos, I'll volunteer mine."

"Very well, SG1 will accompany you," nodded the General. "In the meantime, I want to hear anything you know about this lost city that Daniel put you on the trail of."

"All I know is conjectural theories from Asgard historians and what Aiyana remembers of it," explained Harry. "The lost city that tablet refers to is most likely the capital of the Alterran civilization when it was in its heyday more than five million years ago. It's long been my desire to uncover clues as to its location ever since the Asgard taught me about it's possible existence."

"Can you translate the tablet?" said Hammond, gently pushing it towards Harry.

"I can speak that dialect of Alteran yes, but reading it is a totally different story, we would need to show that to Aiyana."

"Very well, make this a priority, Ambassador…finding the lost city may be the only chance we have to even the odds against Anubis," said Hammond. "Will Daniel be able to assist as well?"

"I doubt that, Sir," said Sam.

"Why not?"

"Well, Sir, he would have done everything in his power to protect the people of Abydos. If he was somehow prevented from doing that then…"

"He most likely was stopped by the other Ascended," said Harry sadly.

"What will happen to him?" said Hammond.

"They will either exile him to a planet, like they did with Orlin or force him to return to human form."

Everyone in the room descended into a worried silence.

In orbit of the planet Abydos a dark violet hyperspace window swirled into existence and the behemoth saucershaped starship _Achilles _burst out of it. Her emmitter glowed in readiness to deliver destruction and death if anyone dared attack. But it was readily apparent that it wasn't necessary.

Whilst Abydos itself was still there and looking amazingly untouched, the orbital space was littered with the debris of what must've been a considerable fleet of Goa'uld Ha'tak class motherships.

"This was a slaughter," said Jack, standing on the Bridge of the _Achilles_, looking all around him at the omni projected view around the Control Chair in which Harry was seated.

"I'm detecting the remains of eleven Ha'taks," said Harry, his eyes closed and mind merged with the cyberspace of his ship. "The plasma decay and energy signatures indicate a massive battle but…_Infinitum!_ I'm detecting the remnants of a _Caesim_ Beam."

"A what?" said Jack in bafflement.

"It's an extremely potent form of energy weapon, the Alterans used them at one point in defense satellites," explained Harry. "But if mounted on a ship and powered with the Collective Eyes…you could conceivably devastate the surface of planet with a few shots and easily destroy whole fleets of ships."

"What about the planet?" asked Sam.

"It's puzzling," murmured Harry, "we clearly saw the evidence of a devastating explosion coming through the wormhole behind us…yet, I'm detecting that the pyramid is intact…take a look."

A holographic screen appeared and showed a top down view of a clearly intact pyramid.

"And…"

The view changed to show a scene about a kilometer from the pyramid…a camp with distinctive Abydonian hut structures and figures running about.

"They are alive?" said Skaara in amazement.

"I'm seeing them with visual sensors, but there are no detectable lifesigns."

"We better get down there," said Jack.

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A hundred meters from the apparent Abydonian village, the musical chime of a transporter sang through the air and with six flashes of light, SG1, Harry and Skaara materialized on the desert sand. They walked towards the bustling village where the din of happy conversation reached their ears and children played excitedly with a soccer ball between the huts.

"Tobay!" said Skaara in amazement.

And indeed, there was the excitable Abydonian walking towards them with a contented smile on his dark face and an odd calmness that hung on him like a cloak.

"Skaara, my friend, it is good to see you."

"You…are you…" said Skaara with worry.

"Anubis destroyed the pyramid, everyone was killed in the blast," nodded Tobay.

"You are all Ascended now?" said Jack.

Tobay nodded.

"What of Daniel Jackson?" asked Teal'C.

"I have not seen Daniel," said Tobay sadly.

"Do you know if he's okay?" persisted Sam.

"I'm sorry, I don't know…one named Oma did this," gestured Tobay to himself and the village behind him.

"And what of me?" said Skaara, his shoulders drooping.

"Do not fear, my friend," said Tobay, hugging his friend and then turning to look meaningfully at Harry, "you will find your way."

"You think we'd abandon you?" said Jack in astonishment. "You can crash at my place."

The football that the children were playing with rolled over and Jack picked it up, when he stood up, the entire village and the pyramid had vanished. Tobay smiled and took the ball from him.

"I wish you all well. You will not see me again. At least not for a while."

And just like that Tobay disappeared as well.

"Let's go home," said Jack, pulling Skaara into a one-arm hug.

Flashes of light and musical chimes marked the last time anyone would set foot upon the surface Abydos. In the future it would be declared off limits to all ships in honor and remembrance of the Abydonians who died there in heroic defiance against Anubis.

Waking up in a strange place with no idea how you arrived there was not never a pleasant or good thing in her experience. Doubly so if you were laying on a hard bed and only wearing a panty. She gasped and sat up, reflexes honed in combat and hard experience had her fully awake and vaulting off the bed to land in a half crouch.

Studying her surroundings she felt those instincts begin to relax slightly. She was in what could only be a sterile medical ward, with numerous beds arrayed in even spaces all about the large ward. It was when she heard a distinctive hum that resonated through the air and the language that some of the displays around the ward were showing that she began to realize where she was.

At that moment a section of the far wall parted to reveal a door. She gasped and crossed her arms over her chest.

Standing in the doorway was a tall woman with dark red braided hair, wearing a form of silver suit all over her shapely body that really did nothing to hide anything. Her strong face was set in an amused smile and her dark eyes glinted with that look of age that Dumbledore had in his, which belied the sheer vitality of the woman.

'I have some clothes for you," said the woman. In her arms were a folded bundle of what looked to be a pure white summer dress. "I apologize for undressing you, but your other clothes were ruined with blood."

"Who are you?"

"I go by the name Aiyana," said the woman, walking closer and placing the clothes on a nearby bed. "And it's good to finally meet you Hermione."

"Did Harry send you?" asked Hermione anxiously, grabbing the dress and pulling it on.

"Yes," nodded Aiyana. "Harry's asked me to apologize for not being here when you woke up, but your near-death has rather upset him and he's most currently making the lives of those responsible rather unbearable."

"Is this the _Achilles_?" she gestured around herself.

"No, it's still in orbit around Earth, you are now on my ship, the Alteran Cruiser _Artemis,_" explained Aiyana. "We're enroute to Harry's home away from home, so to speak, Seaworld."

"We're outside the Solar System then?" said Hermione, feeling a bit light headed.

"Quite, the Sol system is already twenty five thousand light years behind us," said Aiyana with a smile.

"Oh." There really wasn't much she could fathom to say about that.

"Rest assured you will be returned to Earth in due time when it's safe again for you, in the meantime, Harry has asked that you be well treated to a vacation and be allowed to relax…there is no better place than Seaworld for that."

"Can…can you show me the ship? Ever since I was briefly on the _Achilles_ I've dreamt about actually seeing everything involved in running something like this."

Aiyana smiled and laughed lightly. "Harry said you were a curious one…follow me."

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_A/N: Nice big chapter for you as an apology for that cliffie. Sorry for the delay as well, it was a bit of a stop-start affair with this one, as I had to replace the NID-Earth related matters with something new as the internal threat the team and Harry has to battle. The Triad is just the tip of the iceberg. Poor Skaara, I felt sorry doing to this to him, but I have other plans for him. And so the race to the lost city begins._


	36. Chapter 36

_**Chapter Thirty Six – Fallen**_

**Seaworld**

Harry stepped through the event horizon of the Seaword Stargate and felt the calm and relaxation of the pristine environment settle on him like a comfortable blanket. It momentarily drew away his thoughts of worry about Daniel's fate. The Stargate snapped off and he decided to take a circuitous walk on the beaches, he ordered his chromesuit to pull away from his feet to leave them bare and stepped out of the foliage and onto the beach. The combination of sound from the crashing waves, the beach sand between his toes, the beautiful scenery all helped when he was in a contemplative mood.

Thoughts of Daniel returned and with them came the paradox of what was learned about Anubis. The Goa'uld had apparently learned to ascend…somehow, but obviously the Ascended Alterans didn't want someone like Anubis among them with the power of an Ascended. So they sent him back…but for some reason didn't go through with it all the way, he was still a being of pure energy, but confined to the material plane. But the conundrum and paradox was…that it required a purity of heart, an acknowledgement of the truth to achieve the highly elusive mental state to Ascend…so how in all of God's Creation did a Goa'uld as evil as Anubis achieve that?

It was a puzzle that had to be solved if Anubis was ever to be stopped permanently. That brought up the little matter if Harry was to ever fight Anubis…what would be required, could he even kill an Ascended Being? It was a matter that bore further research.

He stopped on the beach and Apparated himself to the stilted cabins on the atoll lagoon. He was pleasantly surprised and delighted at the sight that greeted him on the beach near the cabins.

Hermione was there. He had long ago received word of her recovery, but seeing it for himself brought warmth back to his heart. She was dressed in a two-piece bikini with a thin sarong tied over her hips and she was seated on the beach sand, entertaining Alexandra and Jason. Aiyana was also there in a similar bikini and also involved in amusing the Alteran twins (now two years old)…who were clearly in a world of fun as they ran about splashing each other in the shallow surf.

He wondered where his wife was though. A look at the position of the sun answered the question; at the Temple going through the morning ritual no doubt. He felt a fit of mischief coming over him and willed an Invisibility field over his form and carefully moved forward silently, until he was just a few feet from the surf. He reached out with his mind and summoned a reasonable mass of water to suddenly rise out and splash into the four unsuspecting prank victims.

Hermione and the twins squealed in surprise, whilst Aiyana merely took the drenching and glared in his general direction. _Damn, forgot she's not fooled with Invisibility,_ he inwardly chuckled.

"What the…pffttt?" spluttered Hermione and spat some water out.

"_Patris!_" moaned the twins indignantly. He knew that the two little sprites couldn't see him, but they knew what their father was capable of…and he filled with parental pride at their cleverness in deducing that it was he. It was enough to distract him and be surprised by another torrent of water that blindsided him; it was enough to knock him to his knees.

"Ooompph!" he grunted and abruptly re-appeared as his focus was disrupted. "You didn't have to shoot the water so hard!" He glared balefully at Aiyana, who merely grinned smugly at him.

His two sopping wet children decided it was the perfect time to attack their father and dived for his midsection. He laughed and caught both easily, but pretended to get knocked back for their benefit.

"Naughty _Patris_!" declared Alexandra triumphantly.

"Cool!" said Jason. "You make biggest splash _Patris_!"

"Oh dear, you seem to have caught me," said Harry in mock-concern, his mouth twitching in mirth. "Have you two been good? Your lessons?"

"Auntie Heimdall says we do well!" declared Alexandra.

"Does she?" said Harry, feeling the truth in the words. "Good, now let your poor father up. I have to speak to Hermione and Aiyana." The twins clambered off him and returned into their playfulness. He stood only to be nearly bowled over again when Hermione rounded him in a hug.

"Harry Potter, do not ever do that again!" she declared.

"It's only a little water," he grinned and held her at arm's length. "Are you well?"

"Well? I'm wonderful thanks in no small part to you," she said stepping away from him with reluctance clear on her features.

"Aiyana did the hard work of healing you, I merely got you out of there," said Harry shaking his head.

"Still modest as ever I see," she said ruefully. "You're truly lucky to be blessed with such children Harry."

"I know and give thanks every day for it," said Harry, his heart swelling slightly at the statement. "And what do you think of their mother? I assume they've met?" he asked of Aiyana, who nodded.

"She's beautiful, amazingly open minded and a talented Metaphysicist," said Hermione, her eyes wide and impressed. "Though a bit too open minded…she asked me…well…" Hermione blushed.

Harry chuckled in appreciation; instantly deducing what his wife had asked.

"She came from a society that descended from the Classical Greek era, and largely kept those morals and beliefs …one of which was polyamorous relationships. Sex was also a much more open topic for discussion than it is in contemporary Terran culture."

"Ah," she said, still blushing. "Well…umm…what do you think I should do? She was most…"

"You already know where I stand," said Harry seriously. "If my wife asked, then all that's left is your decision…and that's something I don't want to influence. Contrary to Terran and even Old Greek standards, Apollonia is ruler of the house, since I am too often away."

"Ok," said Hermione, still blushing.

"We can catch up more later, but I've come on business," said Harry, steering the subject away. He sat down on the beach to watch his frolicking children and the two women sat down to his left. He reached to the upper leg of his chromesuit, which liquefied partially on command and the obsidian tablet discovered on Abydos appeared in its cloth wrapping, he carefully took it and handed it over to Aiyana. "See what you can make of that."

Aiyana nodded and unfolded the wrapping carefully in her lap. The instant she saw it she gasped in astonishment.

"Where did you find this?" said Aiyana breathlessly.

He explained the events of Abydos, which took slightly longer than normal since Hermione occasionally asked for clarification of something. Their reaction to Anubis' Ascended nature was almost a mirror of his own.

"Can you read it?" asked Harry.

"Yes," she nodded, staring transfixed at the writing. "It refers to the Capital of our Civilization. It speaks of the Great Plague, their journey into the unknown beyond this Galaxy, and later how the Alterans hid the city from others who might try to find it, and removed all reference to it in their written history."

"How on Earth would they hide an entire city?" said Hermione in astonishment. Aiyana gave a questioning glance to Harry, who nodded.

"It's rather easy actually," grinned Aiyana, "when you consider that it's actually a gigantic starship as well."

"A ship the size of a city?" said Hermione, shaking her head in trying to comprehend that. "But if that's the case…it could literally be anywhere…not just on the millions of planets but also anywhere in the void of the Galaxy."

"It might not even be in this Galaxy," said Aiyana dismally. "How I wish they could've told me where they were going," she mumbled.

"I've tried to use the Legacy," said Harry with a wince. "The knowledge is…there, but inaccessible. It's almost like a limited Fidelius was placed on it."

"Our Ascended brethren clearly does not want to make it too easy for us," grumbled Aiyana. "The way I see it, there is only one approach if we want to find the Lost City; we need to find the Alteran Outpost on Earth. It should have the coordinates of the City encrypted and logged in its databanks. There would have been no way for them to remove it when they returned ten thousand years ago."

"Yes, there's just the same little obstacle of five million years of ice and tectonic shift standing in our way," agreed Harry.

"What do you mean?" asked Hermione.

"It most likely somewhere in Antarctica, because that's where we found the oldest Stargate in the network, and where we dug up Aiyana out of hibernation," explained Harry nonchalantly.

"You can hibernate?" said Hermione in confusion.

"I'll explain later, it's an Alteran thing," said Aiyana.

"Can you run a regressive geological analysis on the computer and estimate where the Outpost is now?" asked Harry. "If you can remember precisely where it was five million years ago," he qualified.

"I'll try," promised Aiyana. "I also think that finding an active Alteran Knowledge Repository would be useful in our search as well."

"Earth has one it discovered and retrieved but it's already been fully discharged once into Jack O'Neill," said Harry.

"Then that one's useless, they were designed to be used as needed by a trained mind, O'Neill's undisciplined use of it caused it to dump everything into his brain. Draining the Zero Point power source permanently."

"When do you wish to start?"

"Tomorrow," said Aiyana firmly, handing back the tablet. "Today is for us, friends and family."

"Couldn't agree more," said Harry pulling Hermione into a hug.

**Briefing Room, SGC, Earth**

"I've finally received some Tok'ra intelligence to relay on Anubis' activities since he obtained the Eyes a few weeks ago, and he's been busy," said Jonas, looking disgruntled. Harry seated next to him understood the emotion Jonas and by extention Kanan the Tok'ra, was feeling. Even though Jonas was the Tok'ra liaison for Earth, the frequency of Intelligence reports that came through the Gate for him left a lot to be desired.

**Cooperation and accepting help is unfortunately not something that my descendants are used to doing,** said Egeria.

**Yeah, I suppose we can't blame them considering the history of their struggle against the Goa'uld,** mused Harry internally.

"By all means, Mr Quinn," said Hammond, inviting Jonas to take the floor.

"To put it succinctly he's going after the System Lords and decimating their forces systematically with the Caesim superweapon," said Jonas. "Now ordinarily this would be a good thing in the short run, but once Anubis finishes with them…"

"He's gonna come for us," said Sam grimly.

"I would think we would be able to stop any incursion by Anubis' Command ship into our space, considering the forces we have in system, even with the superweapon against us," said Harry thoughtfully. "But that is only if he strikes at us with that single ship, but if he arrays a fleet of Ha'tak around it, which I'm sure he will, then we could be in trouble."

"Which means we need a plan to remove Anubis' advantage," mused Hammond. "Level the playing field."

"I anticipated your request…and I've, um, already thought of one, General," said Jonas with an uncomfortable grin.

"Let's hear it, son," said Hammond seriously. Jonas nodded and brought out a folder and handed out three glossy sheets with a high-resolution image of the Abydos Alteran tablet to them.

"The tablet?" asked Harry.

"Yes, now while Aiyana has the original and working on finding the Lost City, I've thought of a way we could use it or more accurately, an altered forgery of it, in the meantime," said Jonas. "Now, what I propose is that we use it lure Anubis and his Command ship to a place where we want him to be; since I'm most certain that Anubis would want something like the Lost City for himself."

"But instead we ambush him?" asked Sam.

"Exactly," nodded Jonas. "Now I've studied enough military tactics and with Kanan's knowledge to know that the terrain and ground you ambush somebody on is critical. Therefore we need a perfect spot that might look like the Lost City at first glance. Enough to keep Anubis there for a while."

"You've found something that might fit the bill?" said Harry with a raised eyebrow.

"I have," Jonas picked up the remote for the wallscreen and zoomed in on its default image of the Galaxy to a point fifteen thousand light-years along the Orion Arm from Earth. An image of a tiny Stargate and its relevant address appeared there. "There's a reference in some partial translations that Doctor Jackson was working on from the Library of the Four Allied Races. It talks about a city of the Alterans called Vis Uban as being a place where the plague began. This was going to be the crown jewel in the entire Alteran domain. Only it was still under construction when the plague broke out."

"Then how did you match Vis Uban to that Gate address?" said Sam curiously.

"It's not a certain match, but four years ago, when Colonel O'Neill had the Alteran repository of knowledge downloaded into his mind, one of the things that he did was to put a ton of new Gate addresses into the SGC computer. Now, I know we've only sent probes and explored maybe a quarter of those…but do you think the Colonel came up with these gate adresses randomly? Or is there some sort of order?"

"Yeah, I suppose…" said Sam uncertainly.

"If Vis Uban wasn't finished being built at the time the entire Alteran civilization fell…"

"You're saying Vis Uban is the last one on the list then?"

"Well, we've been going in order from first to last, right?" countered Jonas.

"It makes sense," nodded Harry eventually. "The way in which the Alteran's named planets was that each of the thirty nine Stargate symbols had a corresponding syllable …the six coordinates relevant syllables would be strung together to form a word…naming the planet and allowing those with the proper knowledge its address in the same instance. Vis-u-ban Au-ri-ga. It matches."

"Send a probe," said Hammond eventually to Sam. "Let's see if we can bait this trap."

**Visuban Auriga**

Since they were going into the relative unknown, SG1, SG3 led by Colonel Reynolds and Harry arrived on Visuban Auriga in full PR8 battle suits. The Stargate shut down behind them and allowed them to behold a fairly barren landscape with a distant forest to the West, mountains far in the distance all around them, but to the North the view was dominated with the visible ruins of a half finished city clearly built by the Alterans.

"Your suit get any sign of the Plague?" asked Jack, with a slight nervous inflection in his voice.

"No, thankfully," said Harry with a grin, after consulting the chromesuit AI.

"Ok, just checking. SG3 standard perimeter, watch our backs."

SG1 and Harry set off for the main section of the ruins; a journey of close to half an hour of walking. So far, things were looking good for using this place as an ambush.

However, their sensors soon picked up a mass of lifesigns concentrated in a central city square of sorts. They eventually also began to hear the bustle of what had to be a village of people, encamped in colorful large tents within the shelter of the ruins. Harry noticed they were of Middle Eastern Terran origin; wearing brightly colored robes and animatedly talking to each other, doing business and so forth.

They emerged onto the main staircase leading down into the city square without challenge. The villagers who did spot them looked at them strangely and warily, but kept their distance.

"Well, these folks are colorful," said Jack wryly.

"They look like some sort of nomadic tribe that's just taken up residence," said Jonas thoughtfully.

A slightly nervous looking handsome young man, with blue robes and a slight brown skin finally approached the Terrans.

"Greetings, I am Khordib."

"Greetings, we're travelers from a planet called Terra," said Jonas, taking on the role of spokesperson.

"You came through the Chappa'ai?" asked Khordib.

"The Stargate, chappa'ai," clarified the Kelownan.

"He is Jaffa," frowned the young man, pointing to Teal'C…who in response merely raised a stoic eyebrow.

"No, but he plays one on TV," kidded Jack.

"This is Teal'C," said Jonas earnestly, "he's no longer allied with the Goa'uld. We come in peace and so does he, we wish to be friends."

Khordib let out a slight sigh of relief. "We too are travelers. This place is not our original home, but…we have been here for some time now. If you wish to lay claim…"

"No, no, nothing like that, we just want to get to learn more about your people and take good look around these ruins. We also have a proposal for your people…nothing nefarious, but we might need your help…is there a leader of your…tribe?

"Shamda is eldest, he speaks for all, I shall fetch him," said Khordib, and disappeared back into the throng of the tent village. It wasn't long before the young nomad returned but this time with a stern looking old man in light blue robes…he had a gimlet eye on the Terrans whilst simultaneously berating Khordib for so easily trusting strangers.

"They are travelers like us," objected Khordib as the two drew near, "they say that they are friends."

"No one can be a friend if you know not whether to trust them," said Shamda sternly, appraising the SG1 and Harry.

"Don't judge a book by its cover," retorted Jack, a grin forming on his lips.

"Enemies promises were made to be broken," said the old man, his stern visage softening somewhat.

"And yet, honesty is the best policy," countered Jack with another proverb.

"He that has too many friends has none," said Shamda, his mouth twitching.

"Ah, but birds of a feather…" said Jack, looking smug when he saw that Shamda had no immediate retort. The old man got a curious look on his face.

"I'm unfamiliar with that story. What lesson does it teach?"

"It has to do with flocking…and togetherness…and…to be honest, I'm not that familiar with the particulars myself. The point is, we're not your enemy. Give us a chance to prove it."

"Colonel."

It was Reynolds, he and his SG unit were approaching from round the corner.

"We found something you all might want to see."

Harry noticed the robed figure trailing behind the SG unit, and the instant they reached the bottom of the stairs he got a good look. Harry gave a slight gasp of astonishment and felt relief.

He was safe. And he had seemingly been Descended.

"Daniel?" said Jack, his voice uncharacteristcally breaking at the sight of their old friend.

"Mohsen," greeted Khordib in contrary.

"Mohsen?" questioned Jack.

"It means 'one who does good'," said Shamda.

"We found him naked in the forest twenty five suns ago, he can do amazing things…" said Khordib eagerly.

"We don't doubt that," said Harry.

"Seems he doesn't remember who he is," said Reynolds softly.

Daniel with his hair more unruly than they were used to seeing and again with no glasses, had stood at the foot of the stairs during all this…looking at them with a stranger's eyes. Harry saw immediately that Reynolds spoke the truth.

'**Damn those stuck up Ascended** _**fatuus,**__'_ groused Harry internally, furious at what the Alterans had done.

'**They do seem to have a chip on their shoulders…then again they have good reason for it,**' pointed out Egeria.

'**I don't care, they descended him and erased his memories…Descension is valid punishment…but not this!'**

"Daniel?" said Sam kindly, approaching him slowly, and reached out to place a hand on his shoulder, "It's okay. It's me…Sa…" Daniel abruptly raised his hand to stop her and she was surprised by the small telekinetic shove that pushed her away from him. Sam looked shocked and devestated by this.

"Do you not recognize us, Daniel Jackson?" asked Teal'C, with near astonishment on his face.

"I'm sorry," said Daniel finally, with a wooden expression and walked off among the tents.

"Not even me?" shouted Jack indignantly.

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Harry and Jack entered the darkened interior of the tent to which Daniel had retreated. It was quite cozy; with thick rugs, pillows strewn everywhere, thin silk veils divided certain parts of it and not a single piece of hard furniture in it. Daniel was seated on the floor with his back to the tent entrance. Harry could feel the emotions of despair and fear rolling off the man in waves.

"Please leave me alone," said Daniel softly.

"I'm Jack O'Neill, this is Harry Potter…and bar some freakish similarity, you are Dr. Daniel Jackson," said the Colonel.

Daniel turned to face them both and Harry had to deflect a Legillimency probe from entering his mind.

"Don't do that Daniel, it's rude to play in other people's heads," said Harry with a soft rebuking tone.

"The fact that you can stop me probably means that we are of the same people," reasoned Daniel, "but it doesn't matter. This tent is all I know. These abilities that let me heal, move things, and see others thoughts are all I know…these people are all I know, but I help them. Before I woke up in the forest, I don't remember anything. I've tried. I've tried to remember who I was before. I can do all these amazing things yet I can't do such a simple thing as remembering who I was. Sometimes I think it's right there, floating in front of me…I try to grab it, and it's gone."

"You were a member of my team, SG-1. You're a friend of mine. Last year, you died," said Jack seriously.

"I'm dead?" said Daniel in confusion.

"Obviously not. You just sort of died. Actually…you Ascended to higher plane of existence. Last time we saw you, you were helping us fight Anubis."

"Anubis?" asked Daniel cluelessly.

"Yeah, kind of over-the-top, cliché bad guy. Black cloak, oily skin, kind of spooky. Anyway, since then you've obviously retaken human form. I…well, I can see how this might sound a bit unusual…"

"A bit?" said Daniel incredulously. "Why am I here?"

"I don't think we can sugarcoat this…" said Harry with a sigh. "But you are probably here as a punishment."

"For doing what?" said Daniel in exasperation.

"When you Ascend…there are certain rules you must follow, in fighting Anubis…helping us, your friends, you broke them."

"How can this be punishment when I don't even remember what I did wrong? Doesn't a criminal have to acknowledge his crime to be punished for it…hey, how did I remember that?" said Daniel in confusion, his eyes crossing.

"Hmmm, the game's afoot," said Harry, walking closer.

"Sherlock Holmes…what?" said Daniel, shaking his head.

"Is that a good thing?" asked Jack.

"Well, it seems that your memory hasn't been blocked completely from you…it's been Obscured only," murmured Harry in thought. He reached out with his hand towards Daniel's head. "If you will permit me, I can just glance at your mind…see if this is indeed the case." Daniel leaned backward wearily. "It's okay, I'm not going to hurt you…"

The truth in the words must have registered to Daniel's senses and he leaned forward. Harry rested his hand on the amnesiac's head and stood dead still for a few moments.

"Oma, you are a sneaky woman," said Harry eventually, pulling his hand away and stepping back.

"Oma?"

"She is an Ascended being and your friend and mentor…I believe she's responsible for your rather swiss cheesed memory."

"Why would she do that if she was my friend?" asked Daniel with a frown.

"She may not have had any choice in the matter…she herself is bound to the same non-interference rule you were, and she helped you Ascend. When you violated the rules, she was most likely forced to do this as punishment under orders from the majority of the Ascended. Yet, there is hope…she saw a loophole I believe…instead of blocking your memory and leaving you with a permanent loss of identity…she only obscured it; meaning that with a proper stimulus your individual memories would restore themselves."

"I see," said Daniel, with a slight hint of uncertainty.

"Think about it, Daniel, look to your heart," said Harry with grin. "We will leave you to consider."

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Harry and Jack approached Sam who was talking to Khordib about anything they had discovered or found in the ruins. The young man replied in the negative, shrugging his shoulders.

"Thanks anyway," said Sam.

"You're welcome," said the young nomad and walked off.

"Jonas and Teal'C are helping SG three and five begin the preliminary sweep," she reported to them.

"Well, I think it's your turn to encourage our wayward amnesiac space monkey," said Jack wryly.

"What did you find out?" asked Sam.

"I telepathically scanned his mind, his memory is still there, but inaccessible," said Harry astutely. "The Obscuring can be removed if we prompt him with reminders of his past…as Jack suggested."

"I'll give it my best shot," she nodded and headed into the tent.

Shamda returned and once again wanted to engage Jack on any moral stories that he knew. What followed was an amusing fifteen minutes of storytelling…Jack's stunted stories didn't really compare to Shamda's…as it was obvious the man was an accomplished orator, clearly this unique nomadic culture thrived on them.

Finally Sam returned from the tent and rejoined them with a slight hopeful expression on her face. Clearly whatever she had said had encouraged Daniel to return with them.

"Carter, Shamda here was just telling us a story about…a dog and some dancing monkeys," said Jack in delight.

"The moral of which: appearances can be deceptive," said the pleased nomad leader.

"I got that," said Jack, putting his hand on the older man's shoulder friendily, "very good story. Wonderful! Full of nuances. I like that."

Jonas and Teal'C approached from the main stairs into the square.

"We sent up a UAV," reported the Kelownan.

"The ruins are quite extensive," rumbled Teal'C with a hint that he was impressed.

"It's going to take us weeks to scour the place properly for anything Shamda's people might've missed," said Jonas further.

"Khordib tells me you have a request to make," said Shamda raising a hand.

"We are currently fighting against a powerful Goa'uld called Anubis," said Harry. "He has a ship of great power that has put him in dominance over other Goa'uld and he is destroying them easily. We need to destroy the ship."

"You speak of a war between great powers, what can my people hope to contribute to that?" asked Shamda gravely.

"Never sell yourself short," retorted Harry and grinned. "For its but a small pebble that can begin the avalanche."

"Truly," said Shamda, looking delighted at hearing a new metaphor.

"We need to use this place to lure Anubis and his ship here," said Jonas. "A trap where our own ships will be waiting for him."

"And we cannot be here for that," said Shamda in comprehension.

"We would aid you in relocating to any world of your choosing through the Chappa'ai, and perhaps there are things we can trade with you in the future," explained Harry.

"I will speak to my people, I can see the benefits it would bring…but tell me, what would you do if my answer had been no?"

"We would've been disappointed and tried to find another planet with these types of ruins," answered Harry easily and truthfully.

"Very well," said Shamda, bowing to them.

"What of Daniel Jackson?" asked Teal'C next.

"He's going home," said the man in question, stepping out of the tent…a look of resolve on his face.

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**SGC, Earth**

General Hammond watched with inward astonishment from the foot of the embarkation ramp as SG1 and Ambassador Potter returned, escorting Daniel Jackson through the event horizon of the Stargate. The man looked a picture of health, a complete contrast from the last time he had been on the Base, dying from radiation poisoning. Now Hammond felt something that he did not expect…a measure of joy at seeing the return of Daniel. He had to admit that he was slightly more attached to the members of his command than an ordinary General would allow himself to get. It was mainly due to the first few years of the SGCs operation…when all that had stood between them and disaster and death was the people on this base…it had forged bonds of near family and shared experience. There was nothing that they wouldn't do for each other within reason.

"Welcome back, Dr Jackson," said Hammond with a smile.

"Thank you, thank you very much," said Daniel, looking around him curiousity and amazement at the spartan and high tech environment of the Base.

"You have no memory of who I am?" asked Hammond, he had been a bit leery of believing the report sent through the Gate, mostly for Daniel's sake.

"None whatsover," confirmed Daniel steadily.

"Neither do I, sir," quipped Jack. Hammond immediately sent his best reproving General expression that quelled his second in command's usual hijinks very effectively. It didn't fail as expected, and Jack sent him an apologetic look.

He beckoned Daniel towards the main blast door, "That way."

A few hours later and one medical checkup confirmed that it was indeed Daniel, that he was in prime health, no diseases, no nothing…he didn't even need his customary glasses anymore.

"I guess the Ascended were kind enough to rid him of that little flaw when they sent him back," said Dr Frasier, after reviewing the results with a patiently waiting SG1 and Ambassador Potter.

"More like returned him to our level of evolution…the Great Leap hadn't happened until after he Ascended," reasoned Major Carter.

"Colonel, I trust you can arrange some suitable quarters for Dr Jackson's…recovery?" said Hammond.

"Right away, Sir. C'Mon space monkey…" the Colonel grabbed Daniel and exited the infirmary.

"What's your preliminary opinion on the viability of the planet?" asked Hammond to everyone present.

"It's suitable for our purposes, General," said the Ambassador.

"I agree, Sir," nodded Major Carter.

"Very well, Mr Quinn, you may proceed with your plan, contact anyone you feel may be necessary to achieve its goal," said Hammond firmly.

"Yes, General," nodded Jonas and left the Infirmary.

"You think we can pull this off?" said Hammond.

"We must succeed," said Harry simply.

**SGC, Briefing Room 1**

"At this point we believe we've mapped the full extent of the ruins," said Jonas, standing infront of the wallscreen with a topographical analysis of the ruins projected for those in attendance to see.

"No fancy guns or anything cool?" smirked Jack.

"Well we've only begun a preliminary investigation, Colonel, it took us two days to just scout it…"

"I doubt we'd find anything of value here," said Harry steadily, "the Alterans of the time would've taken any powerful technologies with them, Plague or not, they would've seen to it."

They were interupted at that point by Daniel and his SF escort walking up the stairs from the control room. The former Ascended had already made a few notable strides in regaining his memory…according to Teal'C he had already remembered his late wife Sha're and few events from his childhood on Earth.

"I'm sorry I'm late I uh…" he glanced at his watch, "forgot what time the meeting was." Daniel smiled initially but it faded when he saw the expression of SG1 and Hammond. Harry merely nodded in welcome.

"It's a little joke there…memory thing."

"Dr Jackson this Briefing is classified," said Hammond earnestly.

"Yeah, Jonas mentioned that but, uh, you all said that I used to be a part of this, so…"

"It would help him regain his memory, General, and he could contribute again when we least expect it," said Harry helpfully.

"Good enough," nodded Hammond after a conferring glance at Jack. Daniel walked over and took a seat next to Sam at the table, who shared her briefing notes with him, whilst the SF was dismissed to his usual duties.

"Besides, who am I going to tell? I mean, I don't remember anybody, right?" said Daniel wryly with a grin. This caused everyone at the table to smother the grins that broke out.

"Good one," said Jack smiling faintly.

"Thanks, Jim," mumbled Daniel distractedly staring at the briefing notes distractedly. Harry had to stifle a snort of laughter that threatened to bubble out of him when he saw Jack's taken aback expression. Clearly Daniel's memory still left a lot to be desired.

"Oh, so, uh…There are extensive writings. All of them are in the oldest known Ancient dialects. All of them have yet to be translated but, uh, so far, as the Ambassador indicated, we haven't found any signs of any advanced weapons or power sources," reported Jonas. "Now, our next task is to get the Tok'ra on board with any intel on the Command ship that they have…I transmitted a request to that end through the Gate and they told me that they would send an operative with the relevant data tomorrow."

"In the meantime, I request that Daniel, if he's feeling up to it, and the Ambassador, work with me on constructing a convincing forgery of the Alteran tablet…we would then ask the Tok'ra to stage a series of events which would allow the tablet to fall into Anubis' hands…leading him to Visuban Auriga."

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The Tok'ra operative sent was a big surprise, at least to Harry. The host was a woman with rich dark brown hair and an attractive face, dressed in the newest dark brown leather Tok'ra uniforms that they had recently begun to use. Harry was all to familiar with this woman and more specifically the Tok'ra within.

"Jamilla," said Harry, his voice breaking slightly as he met her at the base of the embarkation ramp.

"It does my heart good to see you again," said Jamilla, her eyes flashing and embracing her former host abruptly.

"As it does mine," said Harry with a fond smile. "And how is your new host treating you?"

"Well, Anna is a rather prolific fine artist, her mind works in fascinating ways…even more so than yours in some respects," said Jamilla, stepping back from him.

"I don't doubt that…I'm hardly artistic," said Harry, gesturing the way out of the Gate room.

"I've heard from Kanan what you are planning," said Jamilla as they reached the elevator and waited for the car. "It seems most…unwise. The System Lords have tried everything to destroy Anubis' Command ship…and failed."

"And you're wondering how we Terrans are going to handle a ship that formidable?" asked Harry rhetorically with a smile. "Well, we've got a good idea already…it's just that we need more data on the ship if we want it to work."

"Hence the reason for this," she patted her pocket, where no doubt there was the data in question.

"Exactly," grinned Harry.

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**SGC, Briefing Room 2 – a week later…**

The large cavernous room was filled to the brim with F-302 pilots representing every commissioned squadron in the STO Space Force. A total of four squadrons; the old hands, the Mongooses and Flying Tigers, and the rookies, the Diamondbacks and Wolverines. Along the sides were miscellaneous officers from the _Deadalus_ and _Prometheus_.

Sam began the briefing.

"As you've all heard from the latest scuttlebut no doubt…our mission is this…" she pressed a button on the podium and the massive screen behind her showed a wire diagram of the massive Command ship of Anubis, which resolved to a full resolution sensor image. Harry saw that it looked like a massive octagon when viewed from the top, with thick spike sections jutting out of each side, it seemed to be a uniform two hundred meters in height, whilst in the centre a thick tower superstructure emerged on top of which was mounted eight triangles which seemed to blossom out of the ship like a flower. The overall effect when added to the fact that it had a purely black hull meant that the ship was also built for its intimidation factor.

"…this is Anubis' Command Ship, one point five kilometers in diameter, mounting over a hundred ship-to-ship Phased Plasma cannons, fifty point defense cannons, and finally the Caesim Superweapon," she gestured with a laser pointer to the tower superstructure in the centre of the ship. "Its powered by an extremely powerful Zero Point Energy source and with standard auxilary fusion reactors, meaning its shields will be extremely difficult to penetrate…simulations suggest we would need to fire every AHM 1C we have in our inventory to drain the shields. Not to mention we can't risk our Destroyers in a ship to ship engagement with that Superweapon. So we have come up with an alternative."

She altered the screen again to show a sideways diagram of the Command ship within its shield bubble – represented as an orange line. Then a F-302 appeared.

"We use the Hyperspace engines on the F-302 and use a specifically calculated pre-programmed course to send the craft into subspace just long enough to bypass the shields altogether."

The F302 on the screen winked out to emerge within the shield perimeter.

"And if those calculations are incorrect?" said Jack loudly, from his front row seat.

"The 302 would bypass the command ship all together, or worse, re-emerge inside it. But let's not go there right now," said Sam. The pilots in the room mumbled to each other in worry. "Now of course, we cant fire any AHMs into the ship at that point because…well that would make this a one way mission. So we are going old school, your F302 in addition to standard anti-fighter ordnance will be loaded with a Mark 5 tactical nuke housed inside the body of an AHM."

She pushed another button and a cross section diagram of the AHM appeared with the standard nuke inside, however the nose cone of the AHM was also altered.

"As you can see the shape of the nose cone has been modified, and the material changed to an experimental trinium carbon alloy which should allow the missile to breach the hull of the ship," explained Sam. "The main target will be the superweapon, Mongooses that's your job, Tiger Squadron will seed nukes into main superstructure of the ship, whilst Diamondback and Wolverine will engage Death Gliders. Now, once we've finished planting our nukes, we will exit using Hyperspace engines again. Colonel O'Neill and myself who will be joinging Diamondback squadron, will then send a signal which will trigger all the nukes at once…if the signal is blocked then the nukes revert to a five minute timer."

"Boom, the ship is destroyed and we all live to save another day," said Jack with a grin.

"Also for this plan to work we need to have the element of surprise," said Sam, giving an irritated look to Jack. "To that end, the _Prometheus_ and _Deadalus_ will ferry the 302s to Visuban Auriga. Once there, we will land on a makeshift runway that is being constructed as we speak and then both ships will leave to a point five hundred light years away. In the meantime, Ambassador Potter, will be a lightminute Z-plus Visuban in a Cloaked MEV providing sensor overwatch, giving us warning of Anubis' arrival."

"Okay," said Jack, turning in his seat to speak to the room, "everyone who thinks this is an absolutely insane idea, raise your hand…come on, be honest…" And slowly everyone raised their hands.

"Keep your hands up, people," said Hammond in satisfaction, moving to stand next to Sam. "Because as of this moment you are all going to train your butts off for this mission. Please consult your Squadron leaders for your individual assignments. Dismissed."

The lights come on and all the pilots in the room stood and began to file out.

Harry and Jack approached Sam at the podium who was busy gathering her notes.

"Look, I'm sorry for not being the most positive voice here…it's just this subspace maneuver…"

"It's a long shot, sir, I know," said Sam tiredly.

"There's no reason theoretically why it shouldn't work," said Harry with a raised eyebrow.

"This is our only chance to take Anubis completely out of the picture," she said.

"Not completely," objected Harry. "Anubis will have an escape plan from that ship…and even if he doesn't' make it off in time before the nukes activate…he's essentially a cast down Ascended being with 'manacles' on his figurative wrists. His physical shell would be destroyed but his essence would still survive."

"So we'll just have to settle for restoring the balance of power in the Galaxy," said Sam now looking disgruntled.

"I want to say in conclusion to all this…" said Jack mock seriously, "that for the record, this is the wackiest plan we've ever come up with."

"Wackier than carrying an active Stargate with a Destroyer?"

"Oh yeah," said Jack, beginning to walk away.

"Wackier than…blowing up a sun?"

"Yep!" said Jack and exited the room.

"He's probably right," she said to an amused Harry.

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**SGC – MEV Garage.**

Harry, Daniel and Jonas in full kit entered the large room on level ten that adjoined the old missile-testing silo; it had been designated for Harry to park the Alteran craft when not in use.

"_Prospec Meton_," said Daniel in a daze, as he saw the cylindrical craft again…or was it the first time?

Harry laughed as the craft opened its rear hatch for them. "Congrats, Daniel…you've stumbled upon the name the Alterans gave these babies." Harry patted the craft in mock affection. They dumped their supplies and gear in the rear compartment and proceed forward. Harry took the pilot's seat on the left and gestured a hesitant Daniel into the co-pilot seat whilst Jonas took the Science Officer seat behind the pilot.

"So you think I'll be able to work this thing?" said Daniel faintly.

"Certainly," said Harry, placing his hands on the interface pads, which lit up obediently. The rear hatch closed and the craft's engines began their high-pitched hum. The craft lifted smoothly off the ground a few feet. Harry nodded to the technician standing next to garage doors, which the tech triggered.

The MEV inched forward into the silo and began the descent to level 28. All the old girders and catwalks that had been in the way on previous occasions had finally been cut away or removed completely, as such Harry's dive into the mountain went much faster than over previous occasions. He gave a signal to the control room and the Embarkation room's upper roof split below them exposing the waiting Stargate.

Harry hovered the MEV in front of the Stargate and gestured to Daniel. "The honor is yours Daniel." The archeologist nodded and hesitantly began to tap on the central Dialing Device. A few moments after he had finished the Stargate exploded to life.

"Hang on," said Harry and the MEV surged forward. The roller coaster ride through subspace was as exhilarating as ever and a few moments later the craft squirted out of the Visuban Stargate and hurriedly extended its nacelles and angled powerfully upward.

"Cool," said Daniel with a grin, seeing the landscape tear past them at just under the speed of sound. The next sight was just as 'cool'. Fast approaching was the flat area west of the ruins where forty-eight F-302s sat in perfect spacing next to a short runway (since the 302s didn't really need much of one to take off).

"Basecamp this is Eyeball, we are go for overwatch," said Harry, mentally triggering the communications.

"_Roger that Eyeball, good luck_," said the familiar voice of Walter.

"I heard that Hammond himself is coming offworld for this," said Jonas shaking his head in amazement. It would be the second time the General's had done it in seven years of Gate travel, the first being to negotiate the release of SG1 from a prison planet before Harry had joined the SGC.

"This is not your average operation," said Harry. "This is the largest deployment of forces Earth has ever taken off world and out of Sol."

The MEV shot out of the atmosphere and once out of orbit turned 'upward' on a positive Z-axis course relative to the Galactic plane. If there was one thing Harry had made sure of when helping in training the 302 pilots it was emphasizing that they were not fighting in an atmosphere but in 3 dimensions where you could be killed from above or below, conversely that they could also do the same to their enemies.

Finally after twenty minutes Harry was satisfied with their positioning and the MEV cloaked, coming to a relative stop. He then spun the craft on its axis so that the forward viewport showed the blue sphere of Visuban Auriga. It was no bigger than a thumb at eighteen million kilometers from their perspective. He shut down the engines but kept the nacelles extended

"Now we wait," said Harry, focusing on the passive sensors and commanding them to stay online and display a constant feed to the holographic overlay on the viewport and removing his hands from the interface pads.

"For how long?" asked Daniel

"A Tok'ra operative in Thoth's ranks will bring our forgery to our favorite Goa'uld scientist's attention today, and like the arrogant Goa'uld he is, he will barely check for its authenticity once he reads the partial translation of what's on it," smirked Harry.

"Yeah, but we used a blank obsidian tablet older than ten thousand years to make the forgery, so it won't matter," grinned Jonas.

"Thoth won't hesitate to bring it personally to Anubis' attention, so he will get in a Ha'tak and fly out to Anubis on the Command ship…so we have factor that time, plus the time it will take for Anubis to get here…which considering the power of his ship won't be long…maybe two days to a week at most."

"I brought Scrabble…in Alteran," grinned Jonas.

"I brought something called Poker cards, Jack suggested it," said Daniel with a thoughtful frown.

"Indeed," said Harry shaking his head, and why did he have a feeling that that this calm before the battle was going to be unusually hard to tolerate?

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In the end it took seventy-two hours.

Harry didn't want to know what condition they would've been in had he not used Metaphysics to clean up the interior of the MEV. He was also glad that the Alterans had built these little ships with long duration missions in mind, at least in terms of Life support systems.

The singing like chime of warning reverberated through the MEV, waking Daniel from his nap in the rear compartment, and startling Jonas so badly that he knocked over the Alteran Scrabble board, upsetting all of the pieces and sending them flying all over the deck.

Harry rushed over to the pilot's seat and consulted the passive sensors.

"Saddle up guys, we've got an incoming Hyperspace conduit, ETA ten minutes," said Harry intently, and sent the alert signal to the Basecamp on the planet.

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**F-302 Diamondback 1 on Visuban Auriga**

Jack hurriedly strapped into the cockpit with Sam not a moment behind him in the SO (Sensor Officer) position inside their fighter. They didn't have to do many pre-flight checks due to the fact that they had been on constant standby the past few days and ground crews had constantly tended to the fighters.

"Engines?" said Jack donning his helmet.

"Online," said Sam and the loud hum of the Gravitic drives began to resound within the cabin.

"Weapons and shields?"

"Charged and ready."

Jack triggered the canopy of the cockpit module, which slid smoothly into an airtight seal. He shifted the engines into 5 percent power and moved the fighter into a slow trundle on its gear, turning to face the runway.

"_Strike_ _Leader, this is command base, you are go for take off,_" said Sergeant Davis over the radio.

"Yeah, I thought we were going on Red Leader for this one," grinned Jack into the mic on his breathing mask.

"All systems go, Sir," said Sam pointedly.

"Uh, command, there is one more thing…" said Jack expectantly.

"_All squadrons,_" said Hammond's voice. "_Godspeed."_

"All right, that's better," said Jack, dropping the integrated HUD in the helmet over his eyes.

The long line of forty-nine F302s each took their turn to blast their Gravitic engines to max and soared into the sky with less than a hundred meters of runway. When all craft were in the air they angled into exit vectors and broke through the atmosphere and into space.

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A massive hyperspace window burst into existence in the orbit of Visuban Auriga…and from it sped the massive behemoth of Anubis' Command ship. The tower superstructure split itself and secured from Hyperspace mode and blossomed the Caesim Superweapon much like a blooming flower.

The Terran fighters were by now on the opposite side of the planet, using it to shield themselves from detection for as long as possible, already they were angling to slingshot themselves using Visuban gravity to aid in their speed.

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**Central Square of the Ruins on Visuban**.

The Ring transporter that had been discovered by the SGC search teams flared to life and deposited five of Anubis' Jaffa onto the planet's surface. Their staff weapons immediately trained outwards in case of an attack, but nothing happened. They stood clear of the Rings to make way for the next group that would come and scout the ruins.

They didn't see the SpecOps Sniper team in camouflaged positions all around them.

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The F-302s closed on Anubis' ship at over a thousand kilometers per second. This allowed the pilots and their SO's their first glimpse of the ship in the flesh as it grew in their viewports.

"Holy crap! Look at that thing. It's huge!" said Jack. He was impressed…it must've been a bitch to build the thing…it was almost too bad that they had to blow it up; it would've made a nice trophy to capture and bring to the Alpha Site.

"They know we're coming, Sir," reported Sam. "They're basically emptying their bays…I'm reading…thirty…correction…fifty…eighty…ninety Death Gliders launched and on an intercept course."

"Two to one odds, not bad," said Jack seriously. He engaged the common F302 frequency. "All Strike elements, enter Attack formation Charlie One and launch Phoenix at max range."

"_Roger Strike Leader." "Copy that."_

The Diamondbacks and Wolverines angled their courses upward and downward respectively until they were over a kilometer Z-axis apart and forming two long parallel lines, whilst the Mongooses and Tigers maneuvered into a wedge formation in the center.

On the opposite side twenty thousand kilometers away and closing the mass of ninety Death Gliders approached to intercept in a standard staggered formation.

"I've got tone and locked," reported Sam, staring at her subspace sensor screen. "Distance…fifteen thousand…twelve five…ten thousand…nine thousand…we're in range…"

"Fox four, two!" snapped Jack, tapping the fire control with his thumb twice.

Two Phoenix missiles dropped from the open missile bays of each F302 in Diamondback and Wolverine squadrons followed a second later by a similar launch from Mongoose and Tiger. Ninety-eight Phoenix missiles already traveling at their launching fighter's velocity accelerated to nine times that and angled towards their targets.

The AIM-54 Phoenix Missile, initially used by the Navy for the F-14 Tomcat in the late Seventies, had like its cousins the Sidewinder and Skipper missiles, been given the 'Space combat' makeover for use on the F-302. It answered the need for a long-range anti-fighter stand off weapon. The old active homing radar was replaced with a small computer that would adjust flight path according to the SO's subspace sensors using a small on board thruster system. The SO could even take manual control of the missile from the launching F302 and guide it visually using a missile camera feed. The sixty-kilogram BF8 explosive enhanced with weapons grade naquadah replaced the old chemical tritonal warhead. The finishing touch on the Phoenix was its matt black paint finish…there would be no way to see the thing coming…and since there was no oxygen in space, no exhaust trail to spot.

The missiles began to weave and bank erratically as they followed preprogrammed evasion courses…since Death Gliders also had limited forward facing subspace sensors and would undoubtedly detect the incoming weapons.

Immediately the Gliders began to fire their plasma cannons in a desperate bid to shoot down the rapidly approaching weapons. Sixteen missiles were destroyed as they came into the five hundred kilometer range of the Glider cannons…the rest evaded the barrage successfully and activated terminal guidance and detonated in the formation of Gliders.

Thirty-eight Death Gliders were vaporized in brief flares of explosions that reacted with the oxygen that escaped the cockpits. Fourteen were heavily damaged and spun off out of control, being pulled towards fiery deaths by the gravity of Visuban.

"Tally ho, Bandits destroyed, Diamondback, Wolverine, Max Burn Knife, Mongoose, Tiger, break and begin your attack run." Ordered Jack.

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**Ruins on Visuban Auriga**

The Terran Snipers settled in their nests and picked their targets. Their spotters called range and wind…the M82A1M Sniper rifle roared as it sent a .50 caliber anti-personnel slug over the nine hundred meters distance to its target.

The Jaffa in question was there one moment…and the next was literally torn apart by the slug, which had enough velocity to move through two more men in the column, also killing them; the surviving column was absolutely stunned at the sight.

All over the ruins, other Jaffa teams met with similar fates…and the survivors knew terror.

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**Diamondback 1**

"You're headed right for them, Sir," said Sam in concern, referring to the looming forms of the Death Gliders closing into dogfight range.

"I wanna see what this thing is made of," said Jack.

"I could tell you exactly, Sir," smirked Sam.

"Another time, maybe. Forward shields to full."

"Shields up."

Jack frowned in concentration as he picked a target and engaged his main cannon. He turned his head and the helmet HUD began to lock on…a second later it flashed green as the distance reached six hundred kilometers and he let off two blue energy blasts which raced towards his targeted Death Glider and scored direct hits…he instantly had to bank away as a plasma blast impacted his forward shield, reducing it to sixty percent.

Space abruptly filled with blue and orange plasma between the two fighter groups and swiftly turned into a melee.

The first Terran casualties occurred when three Death Gliders opened fire on a single F302 from Wolverine squadron, overwhelming its shield and hitting its reactor…the large explosion took the Jaffa pilots by surprise and the shockwave turned their crafts into molten slag.

The superior teamwork of the Terran pilots was immediately evident as they managed to divide into their combat pairs and began to impose a bit of order onto the chaos of the large dogfight.

Their Sidewinder short range missiles entered the fray next, and kept Jaffa pilots busy dodging whilst their opponents maneuvered through Z-axis turns for cannon kills.

Mongoose and Tiger squadron weaved through the melee, firing as they went scoring kills and engaged max burn and closed on the orbiting Command ship.

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**Mongoose 1**

Lieutenant Colonel Cameron 'Shaft' Mitchell considered the fast approaching Command ship and wondered why it's point defenses hadn't yet opened up on them. If he had been Captain on that behemoth he would've ordered it the instant they had broken through the Death Glider screen, or at the very least, launched another squadron of Death Gliders to intercept. He caught himself though and remembered Goa'uld psychology…Anubis would think the small F302s were mounting a pathetic attempt to somehow stop him by flinging their primitive missiles against his extremely overpowered shields…he didn't believe them worthy the energy to power those point defenses.

Had Anubis been a Terran, he would've ordered a scan of the incoming F302s to determine their weapon payload…and even if he had scanned and detected the AHM nukes…nukes were primitive and wouldn't even dent his shields.

But Anubis was not a Terran.

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**Throne Room, Command Ship**

Herak, First Prime of Anubis, bowed and then kneeled before the towering dark visage of his Master, who stood observing the battle on the main screen.

"Speak," said Anubis; his voice had a deep distorted cadence to it that echoed eerily through the ornate room.

"My Lord, our ground troops have confirmed that there is a human base on the planet, they are encountering resistance from Tau'ri secreted among the ruins."

"The search of the city?" said Anubis, totally unconcerned about any casualties his Jaffa suffered.

"No energy signatures."

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**Mongoose 1**

"OK, Anubis, let's see what you make of this," muttered Cameron, and keyed his squadron frequency. "Ok boys and girls, go to your assigned positions and wait for my mark to begin your hyper jump."

"_Roger Leader."_

Mongoose squadron abruptly split into separate courses and began to surround the Command ship on its upper surface at a distance of five kilometers…whilst Tiger did the same but on a negative Z-axis to the underside of the behemoth.

Cameron focused on his helmet HUD tracking the positions of the two squads and hovered his finger over the special button programmed into the touch sensitive Multi Function Display.

"MARK!" He touched the button marked 'JUMP' and sent a quick prayer for success.

Twenty-four small Hyperspace windows swallowed the F302s and just as quickly a few microseconds later, the craft emerged within the shield perimeter of the Command Ship.

The Command Ship was rocked violently though when two explosions erupted along its superstructure.

"Fuck!" snapped Cameron, as he pulled up hard to avoid the looming hull of the vessel, which was suddenly a massive artificial horizon from his perspective.

"We lost Nine, Sir," said Tanya 'Angel' Chernikova, his Russian Squadron XO. "The Tiger's lost Six."

"Proceed to targets and Fire!" ordered Cameron, putting the death of his comrades behind him, they obviously hadn't been able to pull up in time or their vectors had drifted to much for the computer to compensate when forming the Hyperspace windows.

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**Throne Room, Command Ship**

"My Lord, the human attack vessels have breached our shields!" said Herak steadily, fighting to keep the astonishment from his voice, as he stood at the weapon interface station.

"Shoot them down!" snapped Anubis.

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**Mongoose 1**

"I've got lock on our assigned target coordinates," said his SO.

"Fox one!" said Cameron, triggering the AHM nuke.

From the central missile bay the AHM dropped and flared red as its sublight engine fired, from the other F302s more AHM streaked towards their targets…just as the Point defenses opened fire at last.

Cameron pulled up hard in evasion and felt his rear shield absorb a plasma bolt from a nearby turret and he didn't hesitate to order his squads to bug out. They pressed their 'JUMP' buttons a second time and vanished into subspace.

The twenty-four AHMs crashed one after the other into the Command ship at a velocity that allowed their hardened armor penetrating nose cones to shear through the thick hull as if it was paper. Six AHMs nose cones failed to penetrate all the way though and remained lodged in the hull, whilst eighteen penetrated into the interior of the ship and into the Caesim weapon core.

"Strike Leader," said Harry hurriedly staring at his sensor readout, "trigger the nukes they're in place!"

"_Negative detonation, our com is damaged, Eyeball,_" broadcasted Jack.

"Blast it!" cussed Harry and slammed his hands down on the interface pads. He mentally engaged the com system and sent the appropriate signal codes.

"Uh, nothing's happening," said Daniel hastily.

"The nukes unfortunately only respond to radio transmission, and since such signals only travel at the speed of light and…"

"…we're a light minute away," finished the amnesiac. "Can't the other fighters who are closer send it?"

"Only Jack and I had the damn detonation codes, I knew we overlooked something!"

"That would mean Anubis has just under fifty seconds to escape," said Jonas, staring intently at the sensor readout of the Command ship.

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**Throne Room, Command Ship**

"We've been hit, numerous atomic devices are lodged inside the ship," said Herak as the ship rocked under his feet.

"Come," said Anubis simply, turning around and speeding away from the Throne room, his First Prime following close on his heels.

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**MEV**

They watched in frustration and anger as a black saucer shaped vessel burst out of the superstructure of the Command ship and disappeared into a hastily formed Hyperspace window…just in time.

Detonation flash after flash lit space as numerous new artificial suns engulfed the Command Ship…vaporizing whole sections of it, when finally the power core went critical and added a shockwave radiating outward.

"Eyeball to all Strike units, get your buts into Hyperspace now, that shockwave is not survivable at your range!"

"_Got it!"_ called Jack's voice.

Harry pulled their small ship in a sharp turn on a positive Z-axis angling further back, and engaged the engines into flank speed, pushing the ship to an abrupt fifteen thousand kilometers per second. Jonas abruptly found himself getting acquainted with the floor of the MEV, as he hadn't been in his seat.

"Sorry, about that," said Harry with a wince.

"Can we outrun that?" said Daniel worriedly.

"It's a Level-3 Shockwave produced by the interaction of the Zero Point core and the nukes," said Harry, mentally ordering power from the Cloak system and all other non-essential systems, towards the engines…the whine of the engines reverberated painfully now in their ears as their speed exceeded the recommended fifteen thousand and climbed to twenty five thousand. "The 302s can escape with hyperspace engines but we're not so lucky."

"The planet?" asked Jonas with a groan, getting up and falling into his seat.

"The atmosphere and magnetic field of the planet will sublimate the wave, the winds will be horrendous but as long as the people down there take cover they'll be fine…Shockwave contact in twelve seconds…"

"Can't you go faster?"

"I've got everything routed to engines, only Life support is left," said Harry grimly.

"Life support's not going to do us much good if this ship is pulled apart," countered Jonas.

"Very well," said Harry, the engines were literally screaming now and the three occupants of the MEV winced, they also had to grab hold of their seats, as artificial gravity went offline. "Thirty eight thousand kilometers per second, our inertial field is nearing critical stress overload. Contact in fourteen seconds."

"Ten…nine…eight…seven…" Harry closed his eyes screaming mentally at the ship and then "…if we don't make it gentlemen, it's been fun!"

The world around them screamed and abruptly faded into white…

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_A/N: Whew! Been waiting a long time to write this battle of the SG saga. I know…another cliffie, but it seems all the rage these days. BTW Cam Mitchell was promoted after the attack on Anubis' Mining World for those wondering. Remember to check my Author Bio for updated Tech info. _


	37. Chapter 37

_**Chapter Thirty-Seven – Aschen**_

Pain.

It was not a nice thing.

Yet it served useful purposes. Most importantly, it told you that you were still alive. It also told you that something was hurting you and you needed to do something to make whatever it was stop.

Harry Potter needed the mother of all analgesics if he wanted to get rid of this headache. In retrospect it probably wasn't a good idea to link your mind to a computer system that was about to get a massive jolt of energy. But the fact that he was still alive indicated that he had been successful.

He wearily rose from his recumbent position on the control board of the MEV, looking around he saw that there was thankfully no structural damage to worry about, and they were not in immediate danger of dying in all the remarkably varied means that was available to one when you were in space.

His gaze fell to both his shipmates and found them passed out; Daniel and Jonas were both slumped in their chairs. No doubt from the sensory overload of passing 'through' that shockwave. He let both his friends to their unconsciousness and winced as he placed his hands on the interface pads again, which lit up intermittently and stabilized after a few moments.

It was enough for him to realize that the MEV was not going to fly under its own power ever again, at least not until he found some new engines for it. Both engines had burned themselves out…the driver coils were completely fused and beyond repair. A look at the ship chronometer showed that he had been unconscious for just over two hours.

"Anybody out there?" he murmured to himself, the scanners came online and showed exactly what he hoped for.

"Guys!" Harry kicked Daniel's chair; who came awake with a startled yelp and looked around him in astonishment.

"We're not dead?"

"Of course not," said Harry in an obvious tone, "we wouldn't be having this conversation if we were dead. Wake Jonas up. I'm sure he wants to be conscious when we get rescued."

"How did we survive?" asked Daniel, going over to Jonas and shook him slightly.

"I only want to explain it once, I'm sure our friends and colleagues will be anxious to hear it too," said Harry with a relieved grin. "To be honest, I'm amazed myself that it worked…"

Jonas was just coming around and also coming to grips with their survival when the relatively huge dorsal section of the _Deadalus_ moved into the view port of the MEV.

"_Deadalus to MEV, anybody alive in there?"_

"We're alive and well, Colonel Pendergast," said Harry, triggering the subspace com. "Though we could use a lift if you don't mind."

"_Good to hear, Ambassador, stand by, we're transporting you to the Hangar bay_."

The world around them dissolved in a flash of white as the transporter beam snatched them out of space, ship and all. When everything returned to normal the MEV was sitting on a ship slot usually meant for an F302 inside the cavernous Hangar bay. Already tech crews and emergency personnel were rushing towards them.

The rear hatch descended and the ship's medical staff whisked the three men away towards the Sickbay for a standard checkup. Harry tolerated it because it was standard procedure, the Fidelius charm thankfully protecting Egeria from discovery by the ship's physician…it would've been a pain to have to get things verified with Hammond while he cooled his heels in the Brig or they could've removed her with the medical Transporter program he had written for the STO Medical Core.

The mop up operation for the battle only involved retrieving any debris from the 302s lost in action, and finding any pieces of intact technology from the wreckage of Anubis' ship, whilst the surviving Anubis Jaffa on the planet were captured and being talked to by Teal'C, in an effort to throw their lot in with the rebellion.

_Prometheus_ and _Deadalus_ were already on their way back to Earth when Jack, Sam and Pendergast entered the Sickbay.

"Well, well, spacemonkey, hardly a week back on the job and you almost get yourself killed again," said Jack with a smirk, grabbing Daniel in a manly hug and nooging him on the head.

"How on Earth did you survive?" said Sam, shaking her head. "Not that I'm not glad you did…"

"I tried to outrun the shockwave initially," explained Harry. "There was a chance we could manage it…but when I saw that the thing wasn't dissipating and its speed so high…mostly due to the nuke and the power core setting off a cascading reaction…well, I happened on the idea to use the MEVs Cloak."

"How would being invisible help?" said Jack in baffled tone.

"The Cloak makes you invisible by shifting you out of phase very narrowly with the rest of the Universe…mostly because you still need to be able to scan the universe around you, instead of just seeing it. I merely dialed it way up…diverting all power to the Cloak…I essentially pushed the MEV out of this dimension for that briefest of moment when the shockwave would've ripped us apart."

"Amazing," said Sam with her scientist hat on, "the power needed for that must be huge."

"Exactly, much more than the MEV could provide under normal circumstances…so I diverted all power, even life support, we had perhaps a few seconds of safety; the timing was critical…too early, we run out of juice and we would've phased back before the shockwave passed us entirely."

"Cool," said Jonas with a smile.

Jack raised an eyebrow at the Kelownan in a very Teal'C like fashion before asking, "Did you guys manage to see if we got Anubis?"

"Yes, and no we didn't get him," said Harry shaking his head. "Our little blooper with the nuke codes gave him a window to get to an escape ship, he shot into Hyperspace seconds before the nukes went off."

"Damn," said Jack, punching his own hand in frustration.

"Even if we got him with the nukes, he would've still survived, I'm still working on a way to get rid of him once and for all," pointed out Harry.

"Keep us in the loop on that, will ya?"

"When I figure it out," affirmed Harry with a nod.

**P3A-194 Volia**

"C'mon, we have to move!"

Harry shouted to the three men of SG9 and popped out of the flimsy wooden fence he'd used for cover and brought his PR7 to bear to shoot down the dirt road towards the line of advancing enemy.

Nasty green energy bolts were returned as answer, but it had given SG9 the time to pass him. He continued to pepper the enemy; even scoring a hit that flung the enemy soldier off his feet, leaving a smoking hole through his chest. It was the first dent they had been able to make in their hunters' numbers; since they saw fit to use a form of portable energy shielding that seemed to come from a gauntlet on their wrists. The only drawback was that they couldn't keep them up indefinitely…hence why he could score a kill.

Harry turned and sprinted with all his considerable speed to join SG9 in the woods. He breathed a slight sigh of relief now that they were in the somewhat less exposed area, other than the miles of farmland around the Stargate. They could sure use the cover.

By the time he reached the SG team, there were already zipping green bolts speeding through the trees in an effort to cut them down. The five of them vaulted over a fallen rotting tree and hunkered down with a mental command from Harry.

He concentrated hard holding out his hands, which glowed ethereally and began to weave various Wards around their location. It would hide their life signs, place them under invisibility, and put a Notice-Me-Not effect on their little bunker.

"Is that going to help, Ambassador?" said Colonel Everson, the leader of the de facto diplomatic team of the SGC.

"It will," said Harry grimly. "But it won't keep us safe forever. If they are determined to get us then they surely have a weapon that could annihilate this entire forest if they were so inclined. But it's pretty big, they'll search for us probably before that."

"I'm sorry, Ambassador," said SG9's XO, Captain Hernandez, his eyes full of self-recrimination. "Their minds and thoughts it's…horrible. I couldn't believe the things they're capable of and I lost control…"

Harry shook his head with a sigh, "You're still not fully experienced in the Mind arts, Captain. Seeing things like that was bound to give you the creeping horrors…I experienced the same thing when we were sitting at the conference table on that flying Harvester."

"But you didn't reach across the table and want to murder them with your bare hands for what they've done to this planet's people and others," said Hernandez, his shoulders drooping.

"No," admitted Harry. "But what if I told you that when I was young and just starting to learn the Mind arts, I also lashed out unconsciously at the prompting of violent and horrible thoughts I was exposed to. Treat it as a learning experience, Captain."

The man only nodded, but the self-recrimination remained.

"I doubt we can just sit here and wait for rescue, Ambassador," said Everson after a brief moment of contemplative silence. "We've got to rescue ourselves."

"You're right," nodded Harry. "But they've got an entire squad guarding the Gate. Evading the patrols looking for us is one thing…assaulting a fixed fortified position with only PR7s…"

"Not to mention those damn personal shields of theirs," said Hernandez.

"Ah ha…now you're talking Captain," said Everson with a grin, a plan seemingly forming in his mind, "those shields…Ambassador, think you can nab some for us?"

Harry raised an eyebrow in consideration. "I could do it, and it may work, if the shields aren't biometric. But I have to do it alone…I can't be sneaky with company."

"Will our 'bunker' be safe with you gone?"

"Of course, hang tight," grinned Harry and stood before vanishing from sight.

"How long you think it's gonna take him, Sir?" asked Lieutenant Van Eis.

"A while, maybe a day, we should check our MREs in the meantime, we've no idea how long our escape might take."

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**Briefing Room 1, SGC, Earth, 24 hours previously…**

"Our initial contact with the Aschen seems very promising, General," stated Harry with a smile. "The coordinates they gave us when we encountered them with the _Deadalus_ is actually a planet called Volia, that's part of their confederation."

"According to this the Volians are at an agrarian stage," said Hammond, looking at the report.

"Yes, but they're seemingly quite content to remain that way."

"The Aschen didn't want to reveal the location of their homeworld out of security concerns, at least until we have a treaty," explained Sam.

"They're a little paranoid," provided Jack mildly.

"It seems appropriate since they don't have an Iris or Shield currently installed over their Gates," said Daniel.

"We do know that they've created a secondary star in the Volian system by igniting a gas giant, thereby doubling the Volian's growing season," Sam reported with that excited and impressed tone to her voice.

"They took Arthur C Clarke's idea and actually made it happen?" said General Thompson, in amazement, from his position next to Hammond.

"I doubt they've heard of him, but yes," nodded Sam. "Theoretically, if you increase the density of a sufficiently massive gas giant until a thermonuclear reaction can take place…you can do it, no problem."

"This, combined with the scans of one of their ships by _Deadalus_, clearly shows us that they could be formidable allies in the fight against the Goa'uld, perhaps even allow us to go on a proper offensive," suggested Harry.

"If the Aschen are Stargate capable, why haven't we heard from or of them before?" asked Thompson.

"Their representative, a man named…Borren, said that they only have two Gates, on Volia and Aschen itself, but no DHD was ever recovered," explained Daniel.

"Naturally, the Aschen tried dialing numerous combinations into the Gates, but without a DHD to compensate for stellar drift, they were stuck like we were," Sam continued.

"We could only go to Abydos," nodded Hammond.

"Exactly. It was only _after_ Daniel's discovery of the cartouche on Abydos that we were able to make the drift calculation to successfully dial out to other planets. Add to that the database that Colonel O'Neill retrieved from the Alteran Repository, and we could offer a whole galaxy of worlds to the Aschen that they never knew existed and gain in return their allegiance and technology, and perhaps even go on a full offensive against the Goa'uld."

"The news of all those new worlds must have come as a shock," said Hammond.

"Oh, not really," Jack said sarcastically.

"What the Colonel is trying to say is that if they were surprised they'd never show it," intoned Jonas, looking troubled.

"They don't get excited," said Jack, explaining himself, "it's like a planet full of accountants."

"Colonel O'Neill, mistrusts the Aschen," provided Teal'C stoically.

"I never said that," retorted Jack.

"Indeed you did…on several occasions."

"No! I didn't. What I said was: I didn't trust people without a sense of humor. Especially that _boring_ guy."

"_Borren_," corrected Teal'C.

"I _know_ his name," bit Jack out in frustration. "He was _boring_."

"The Aschen have agreed to meet us on P3A-194 tomorrow. Ambassador, you and SG9 will make the trip and begin preliminary negotiations to bring them into the alliance. At the very least try to get them on board, a technology exchange while helpful is not essentially required," said Hammond and turned to his superior. "Anything you wish to add, General?"

"With _Apollo_ and _Odyssey_ being launched tomorrow, and the _Edison_ nearing completion" said Thompson thoughtfully, "I don't have to tell you how nice it would be to have a fleet of allies out there to watch our backs in offensive operations. So please, don't muck it up."

"I shall endeavor not to disappoint, General," nodded Harry seriously.

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**P3A-194**

Unfortunately, everything was mucked up before Harry and SG9 had ever gotten on the scene. It could only be the worst luck in the Universe that they meet up with a race of advanced humans that fully had the capability of taking on the Goa'uld on an even keel, and then have those same humans basically behaving like Goa'uld themselves and on some levels even worse.

The negotiations had been held on what the Aschen called a Harvester; it was roughly just under a hundred meters long with a beam of twenty, with a polished black colored hull and was very elegantly designed for its purpose, collecting the grain from the fields it hovered over. It was curious that the Aschen had converted the Harvester as a place to hold diplomatic negotiations in, but they had yet to see a house or any structure on Volia.

The meeting room on the Harvester was painted a dull gray and the table integrated into the floor with a holographic plate in its center; it also held an open balcony of sorts that allowed you to stand and look out over the vast farmlands that the Harvester ship slowly meandered through.

Harry, wearing his traditional white and gold Alteran robes for the occasion, sat at the table with SG9 staring at the two Aschen opposite them. Their names were Borren and Mellon; they had inscrutable stoic expressions and wore similarly dull gray and black clothing. Their hair was slicked back severely against their heads, and both were rather small and skinny.

"Ambassador Potter," began Borren, "allow me to introduce your counterpart from our federation…Mellon."

Harry merely bowed his head in acknowledgment. The Terran custom of shaking hands was one that was not often found out there in the Galaxy, Daniel and Jonas could probably write a rather fascinating book on why.

"I offer greetings from our governing council and hope that we can forge a friendship that can enrich both our people," opened Harry.

Enrich is such a nice word; unfortunately it was not what the Aschen had in mind. They wanted the access to the Stargate network oh yes, and would give a lot for that access; technology, they would attack the Goa'uld in concert with them, and they would perhaps even join the alliance formally after testing the waters for a few more years. But Harry and indeed, all of SG9, were growing increasingly unsettled by the surface thoughts they could occasionally pick up when their gazes met with the two Aschen.

The Aschen had very organized minds; they had emotions but seemingly did not express them at all. Mellon's thoughts were about the typical things any diplomat was thinking about…how to get advantage without giving too much away in the process, his fellow Aschen was thinking about much the same thing, but then occasionally they would get flickers of dark thoughts that bubbled to the surface despite the Aschen's control.

Thoughts of expansion…domination…the Stargate network the tool to achieve this…then the methods they used…

Harry inwardly winced as that thought settled itself in his mind…he followed the mental thread back to Mellon…

_By the Creator!_

It was enough. His broke eye contact with Mellon and immediately turned his mind to figuring out a way they could extricate themselves quickly from the negotiations and leave without the Aschen becoming the wiser. Of course, it just had to be at that point that Captain Hernandez had asked about the Volians and what the Aschen thought of them…when the young Hispanic man suddenly paled as he stared at Borren; his mouth almost gaping in horror.

The next thing anyone saw was Hernandez suddenly standing over Borren with the Aschen's neck between his hands and squeezing with his significant Terran strength. A light of near mania was in the Captain's eyes as he throttled Borren.

Mellon produced a small energy weapon of sorts that he began to aim at Hernandez.

Harry launched himself out of his chair and pivoting with his hands flat on the table, kicked the weapon out of Mellon's hand with his left leg, following it up with a kick on the jaw with his trailing right leg as his momentum carried him further. Mellon was launched out of his chair and crashed against the nearby wall, slumping into unconsciousness.

Colonel Everson and Lt Van Eis had in the meantime pulled Hernandez off Borren; who was slumped on the floor looking deathly pale. Everson had to slap the furious Captain into the here and now, as his mind's eye was still clearly fixated on what he had seen in Borren's mind.

"Oh shit," said Hernandez, looking aghast with himself.

Harry kneeled down next to Borren and felt for a pulse…there was none.

"He's dead," declared Harry grimly.

"What…but…" stuttered Hernandez.

"We can't speak in more detail here, but you broke his neck…he didn't have enough time to suffocate. But we have to get out of here…"

Of course, they didn't trust the Aschen transporter since the meeting had to have been under surveillance; you just didn't send an Ambassador with no backup, and there had to be an Aschen garrison force on Volia. So Harry led SG9 out onto the small balcony and made use of a skill that Voldemort had mastered and the Alterans considered pointless beyond showing off. He didn't Apparate because pulling four people into subspace would be a bit of stretch and he didn't want the Aschen possibly recording it happening.

Harry had SG9 stand on either side and behind him; all with a firm hand on his person…his mind reached out to the gravitons around them and suddenly they were all airborne, rising into the air above the Harvester and literally flying with no apparently visible means. SG9 had been rather skeptical of Harry's suggestion that it was possible to do this…it was straight out of comics after all.

Harry steered them awkwardly and descended safely to the ground a hundred meters away from the Harvester. Flying yourself was one thing; doing so for another three people was a strain.

SG9 shook off their amazement and began to sprint with all due speed for the Stargate. The Aschen were waiting by then, as they had coming poring out of the transport platform near the Gate.

Volia was the worst place in the Galaxy for a skirmish. No cover, just flat farmland and rolling hills…they might as well have returned to the rank and file musket era of armed warfare. Then there was the Aschen soldiers themselves.

They were a galaxy apart from Mellon and Borren – clearly selected for their physical prowess or perhaps the Aschen used eugenics on themselves - standing over a head taller and strong, wearing a form of gray plastic segmented armor suits that seemed to dissipate energy weapon fire over a greater area than normal…almost like the PR8 AW system, but with one key difference, the Aschen soldier could also bring up a personal force shield that harmlessly absorbed their plasma fire. They didn't work forever, and their armor was not perfect, but it was enough of a disadvantage that Harry and SG9 had to make themselves scarce.

And now here he was alone and invisible in the small forest crawling with Aschen troops trying to catch and subdue a soldier without his buddies finding out. Not an easy proposition, since the squad tactics of the Aschen seemed pretty good; they kept themselves within sight of each other at all times, formed a staggered search line and if he didn't miss his guess the squad was using an interlacing search pattern. It would've easily herded and cornered a 'normal' foe, but Harry and SG9 were far from that.

He spotted his first target of opportunity on the flank of the squad, a burly brown haired soldier was approaching a tree cautiously, it was wide enough for someone to hide behind and the soldier carefully advanced with his weapon raised and sidestepped carefully to circle around it…he was out of sight for less than two seconds, but it was enough for Harry to fling a disillusionment, followed by a silencing field and finally a Stunner, on the soldier.

Also invisible, Harry hovered the insensate man well away from the position his comrades had last seen him and got to work. Using the soldier's actual armor and clothing was out – since it seemed the things were made personalized to the wearer's body dimensions – learning to adjust clothing with directed energy matrices had not been a priority for him, and there was no way to be sure the Aschen hadn't placed anti-tamper devices or booby traps in it to kill any enemy that tried to remove it from their soldiers.

What he did risk to get was the gauntlet around the man's left arm, it took a bit of quick thinking and recalibrating his Alteran scanner to disengage it from the soldier. He next attempted to do the same with the armor and finally after twelve minutes of tapping the scanner to disengage the armor interlocks, was rewarded with success. He reached into his robe pocket and pulled out a miniaturized Alteran Transcendental 'trunk', expanded it, dumped the armor, shield gauntlet and the soldier's energy rifle into it and pocketed it again.

He settled for adopting a camouflage over himself, not wanting to chance donning the armor until an extensive scan on the thing was made – and a moment later to the outside observer the prone Aschen soldier suddenly had a twin standing over him.

He altered the parameters of the Stunner on the soldier so he would wake in twelve hours and left to waylay another. He figured he had another fifteen minutes before the enemy squad would realize that one of their number was not responding to coms.

88888888888888888

Colonel Everson held his arm out like he'd seen the Aschen soldiers do it – as if they were actually carrying ancient bronze shields – and triggered the energy shield; blue light blossomed in an oval shape that would protect him from head to toe. A bar indicator on the inside wrist of the gauntlet slowly receded – indicating how much shield time he had left – and he thumbed the small pressure pad in his fist to deactivate it. The bar slowly scrawled itself back to being full, recharging the shield.

"This is like being back in the Classical era," mumbled Van Eis, with his shield engaged and poking his PR7 around it carefully whilst keeping his body behind it. "Except with plasma weapons and energy shields."

Harry chuckled at the analogy.

"Aren't you going to use a shield, Ambassador?"

"I don't need a gauntlet to raise a shield, Colonel."

"Oh," Everson checked the charge on his PR7, still good.

"What are your thoughts on getting to the Gate, Colonel?"

"Well, I figure even if we defeat the squad around it, there's no DHD for us to use to Gate home quickly…we'd have to use manual dialing and that takes time; something we will not have since the Aschen still in the woods will be onto us."

"I can mentally interface with Gate itself, so no DHD shouldn't be a problem."

"You mean your mind will take the place of a DHD?" Hernandez blinked in astonishment.

"Somewhat," admitted Harry. "But not in the complete sense, a DHD has countless wormhole safety protocols, I can't duplicate that. Manual dialing without DHDs is something that is only done in emergencies for a good reason."

"OK, that's fine for when we get there, but what about on the way there? The Aschen might spot us if they have satellites or a ship in orbit," queried Everson.

"I can render myself and you temporarily invisible until we get to the Gate."

"Umm...Ambassador, tell me if I'm out of line, but just what can't you do?" asked Van Eis incredulously.

"A great many things," grinned Harry. "But remember, anything that I can do, you can too with the right training, determination and experience. Didn't you get the memo for the new Metaphysics class I'm going to teach for SGC personnel?"

"Umm..." Van Eis looked uncomfortable.

"What the Lieutenant is trying to say is that he absolutely hates paperwork," grinned Hernandez in what was no doubt a inside team joke at their most junior member.

"I can't help it if those things practically make me fall asleep, can't we bring in a novelist to teach a class on descriptive writing in memos and reports?"

"I'll send a memo, Van Eis," grinned Everson.

8888888888888888

Walking under disillusionment and silencing fields was a decidedly odd experience for SG9. Van Eis had excitedly remarked, 'I'm like a Predator!' when he looked at his arms and body taking the exact texture, colors and hues of the forest scene around them. Not to mention that it was rather pointless now to run and the issue of no cover on the flat terrain was rendered moot. Harry had also tweaked the disullisionment to mimic the natural infrared spectrum too, just in case there was an Aschen satellite in space over them.

What was a serious issue though was the Aschen around the Gate. There wasn't just a squad of them but a whole platoon of forty soldiers all arrayed in a tight defensive perimeter around it. Clearly they didn't want those who had killed the Ambassadorial aide to get any chance to escape. The Aschen had also set up four versions of a squad assault weapon; the high energy that Harry sensed in those weapons clearly meant that they had either an extremely high firing rate or used it to discharge the equivalent of a Goa'uld Staff cannon.

Neither proposition was very enticing for a textbook assault on a fixed position.

Harry grumbled to himself uncertainly...he was now in a bit of a conundrum. There was no way that he and SG9 was getting through the Gate using 'conventional' force. Using 'unconventional' force opened a can of worms that he really didn't want to. It would be exposing the Aschen – who were now essentially an enemy of Terra – to Metaphysics and Harry could only imagine what they would do with that information. It could either cause them to back down or they would throw their all into assaulting Earth and Terrans to perhaps obtain such power for themselves.

Harry gathered his three fellow Terrans and making sure their individual silence fields overlapped, explained his concerns.

"I see," murmured Everson thoughtfully. "But perhaps...we can use a mixture of both. Throw the Aschen off the scent somewhat. We only have the light loadout of field gear; meaning four blocks of C4 per team member...can you render the explosives invisible as well?"

"Yes, there's no essential difference between any matter that I choose to render invisible."

"That means twelve fist sized blocks of C4 to take out forty tightly clustered bad guys, should be easy. We can mop up any survivors with PR7s."

"Not so fast Hernandez," said Everson. "This has to be timed right, otherwise we'd run the risk of getting our asses handed to us by the squads stills searching for us."

"And lets not forget about the Aschen transporter near the Gate," Van Eis chirped helpfully.

"We'd need to use a C4 charge on it, it's made of pretty sturdy stuff," Harry advised.

"So eleven charges for the soldiers, one for the Transporter, take out the survivors with PR7 fire, the Ambassador gets in position to activate the Gate and we're home free."

"I doubt it will be that easy, Colonel," said Harry.

"Plans never survive first contact with the enemy. We'll just have to improvise."

888888888888888

Harry carefully maneuvered amongst the perimeter of stoic Aschen soldiers; he had to admit, he was impressed with their intensity and professionalism, in the twenty minutes he had carefully laid the C4 charges (he was invisible not insubstantial, if one of the soldiers unexpectly moved and bumped into him...) they did not chatter with each other, communicated with brief hand signals, and kept eyes up and to the horizon at all times. Their Commander, whose armor had red colored shoulders to distinguish him, moved amongst his men effeciently and without fail demanded check in with the hunter teams in the forest every ten minutes. It did not bode well for a future conflict with them.

When Harry returned to the spot where Everson had hidden himself about a hundred and fifty meters away from the mouth of the Stargate...he had to stop the Colonel from pulling out his remote detonator and commencing the attack.

"The radio signal to the explosives will be canceled out by the metaphysics used to render them invisible..." he explained.

"Then what on earth did we do all this for?"

"...at the moment," finished Harry pointedly. Everson nodded slightly sheepish and handed over the detonator as the Ambassador held out his hand for it. Harry turned it over in his hands and after closing his eyes and mumbling something under his breath, handed it back. "Try it now."

Everson took back the detonator, unlatched the red safety catch; exposing the metal stub which when flicked would begin the show. He waved over to Hernandez' position on the left flank of the enemy, and to Van Eis on the right. They waved back and immediately fell prone to the ground and aimed their weapons on the enemy.

"Two and one..." the switch was flicked and a slight beep preceded...

...the loudest, deafening roar this side of a dragons' right next to your ear. Thankfully the ear plugs helped a lot, and what they couldn't the silencing fields took care of the rest.

The massive exothermic reaction of escaping gases at over eight kilometers per second washed over them...straining the personal shields considerably, but managing to deflect the shock wave to prevent them from being picked up and flung ungracefully through the air.

The gases moved outward so rapidly that they sucked most of the gas out from the "middle" of the explosion. After the outward blast, gas rushed back in to the partial vacuum, creating a second, less-destructive inward energy wave.

All this happened in less than a second.

Dust and debris filled the area with a haze that obscured their sight rather completely, but they didn't have time to wait for it. As soon as they maelstrom had died down and they had their wits again, with PR7s leading the charge, they rose and waded into the mist of dust toward the Stargate. Visibility was barely two meters and it made walking in a straight line rather difficult with no reference. Harry homed in on the massive energy of the Stargate with his senses and as a result both he and the Colonel were the first to arrive at the base of the Gate.

So far they had not found a single Aschen survivor.

The high pitch of the a firing PR7 was heard a few moments later while they waited for Hernandez and Van Eis. It died down and a few seconds later the Captain emerged out of the gloom.

"Good of you to join us, Captain," Everson commented dryly.

"Only found a single survivor thus far, sir." It was left unspoken that they didn't need to worry about that survivor any longer. They waited for another thirty seconds and still no sign of Van Eis.

"He better hurry up, the Gate isn't going to be obscured for much longer."

Harry pulled out his scanner and looked into it for lifesigns...he found theirs around the Gate, but saw another actually moving in a rather erratic fashion.

"Van Eis is disorientated, he's bumbling about in completely the wrong direction."

"Ambassador, give the scanner to Hernandez, you get the Stargate working so long."

Harry did as instructed and placed his hands on naquadah surface of the Gate, again closing his eyes. The Gate felt in good condition, the 'alien Aschen' control circuitry connected to its base clearly didn't like being overridden, and attempted to retaliate with a virus to repel what it saw as a foreign system. The said system was obviously Harry's mind.

He deflected the attack easily by using the internal Gate mechanisms and computers to create what a Terran would call a Mandelbrot Maze attack program and launch it at the virus...completely fooling the offensive program into trying to solve the problem the Mandelbrot attack wrote into its base code...and since the specific problem was unsolvable (asking it to calculate Pi to its conclusion, which could not happen, not at least until the end of the universe). The virus as a result imploded in on itself.

He returned his mind to the Gate and a few moments later the chevrons began to light up. He hurriedly backed away and just then the kawoosh of the unstable vortex occurred within the mouth of the Gate.

A sheepish Van Eis emerged from the clearing gloom with Hernandez.

"Got lost Lieutenant?"

"Yes, sir...sorry, sir."

"Well, I think we've overstayed our welcome," said Everson, tapping the keypad of the GDO strapped to his wrist, and received the green light to indicate it was safe to come through two seconds later.

As Harry stepped into the event horizon; he couldn't help but feel the failure of adding another enemy to Earth's list of bad guys who wanted their blood. They had gone into this hoping to get a space capable ally to take on the Goa'uld with...instead they walked away with another enemy reaching for their necks.

888888888888888888

**Briefing Room 1, SGC**

Anyone walking into the room would be rather confused.

If they were privy to General Hammond's schedule it would indicate that there was supposed to be a debriefing going on from the diplomatic mission to Volia. However, there was not a single soul currently in the room in question. The chairs were still pulled out haphazardly as if the people meeting had left in a hurry.

The only activity in the room, came not from a person, but from a large silver chrome bowl on the conference table, that anyone in the SGC would recognize as having the language of the Alterans inscribed on it ornately. Inside this bowl was an eerie substance of blues, whites and silvers, that pulsated and writhed. Any scientist would on the base would call it 'eerie' because the state of the matter within the bowl seemed to be a bizarre blend between a gas and liquid.

For almost thirty minutes this scene continued until abruptly people were distorted and spat out of the large bowl to what looked to be positions that had their noses touching the eerie liquid. Most of them abruptly jerked back, seemingly rather startled at the change in their positions relative to wherever they were.

"That was most, odd," said Teal'C, one of those who had reacted as if he had just done something boring and had not just actually been inside an all immersion projection of someone's memory.

"Was that also transcendental? It had to be," Sam shook her head to clear it.

"From our point of view, yes," answered Harry with a nod. "This Pensieve is used to revisit memories, usually of critical events that has happened to you, or to help organize your thoughts. It's especially useful, when you consider how much information your consciousness actually filters out for you...one never knows when you might miss something that could be essential. It also helps to spot patterns in events."

"I can easily imagine its usefulness," General Thompson stared at the bowl, "considering everything that gets put on my plate."

"And it's especially that usefulness that makes these such a rare commodity," Harry patted his Pensieve. "This one I fashioned myself, by hand and mind alone, it's not easy to do. Another reason why they're so valuable."

"Ok, getting to the matter at hand," Hammond folded his hands together thoughtfully, "what we just witnessed was the memories of yourself and SG9, and those others were the surface thoughts and memories of Borren and Mellon."

"Yes, General."

"Yes, sir," nodded Colonel Everson.

"And can you confidently state that you didn't...just see a passing idle thought or that this was just what either Mellon or Borren had themselves seen somebody else do?"

"This was direct, General," said Everson firmly. "Mellon and Borren were actively considering a way to get past our Stargate defenses to deliver a bioweapon secretly onto Earth. They would then miraculously come up with a cure for us, which we of course, would not refuse."

"This cure would have a side-effect of preventing us from reproducing," said Harry darkly. "Of course we wouldn't realize that until it was too late, and our gratefulness to the Aschen would've perhaps left us blind to the signs that they were 'bad guys'."

"It seems this is the Aschen's MO when trying to expand their territory or to get what they want," said Everson. "They don't necessarily go for straight up military options, they're patient, they seemingly give technology away for nothing. But those technologies become like chains on the society that its given to."

"The bioweapon scenario is exactly what seemingly happened to the Volians," explained Harry further.

"I knew I didn't like those guys for a reason," grumbled Jack.

"So the Aschen knows we are on to them now, does that mean we should expect an incursion into Sol space soon?" General Thompson raised his eyebrows in question.

"Not in the immediate future," Sam said. "I've been going over our sensor data on the Aschen Battlecruiser _Deadalus_ encountered. Their Hyperspace window events are considerably on the lower end of the scale with regards to relative speed achievable for them. I would rate them as having the same FTL ability as the Tollan's had. Which is good news for us, as it means that it would take a Battlecruiser roughly a year, perhaps eighteen months to make the journey from the Confederation to Sol. So unless we ourselves run into them..."

"Understood, Major."

"The Confederation's position relative to us in the Galaxy also means that we can deploy a trip line of sensor satellites to act as an early warning system of sorts," suggested Harry.

"Like the SOSUS nets in the Atlantic," nodded Thompson. "Rather fitting, considering we might as well be in a state of Cold War already with them."

The briefing was interrupted at that point with the alarm klaxon's starting to ring and not two seconds later the Stargate began to light up and lock in coordinate chevrons.

"No teams are due," said Hammond. That prompt was all everyone needed to rise out of their chairs and descend into the Control room as the Iris was closed and Shields raised. "What do we have Walter?"

"Visitors for the Ambassador," stated the Stargate controller.

"Ah, I've been expecting them for some time now," said Harry with a grin and twinkle in his eyes.

"Receiving Aiyana's IDC, sir."

"Lower defenses."

"Yes, sir."

Just moments after the wormhole was open, the event horizon 'slurped' as Aiyana stepped through, but she had company...as moments later, Apollonia and Hermione also emerged on either side of her. Harry found it suddenly hard to breathe for some reason. Perhaps it had something to do with the fact that all three were in chromesuits...a brief glance at the largely male dominated environment around him confirmed that his fellows were also rather...stupefied by the beauty that just walked in. Harry didn't know if his wife and her two friends would be irritated or flattered to know that they had the same effect as a flock of Veela on men.

"Minds out of the gutter, gentlemen," grinned Harry, and walked out of the room. He shared his usual enthusiastic greeting with his wife, who decided she had missed him and wanted a bit more. Hermione and Aiyana were greeted with tight hugs, and he was surprised when Hermione initiated the 'feeling-sharing' with him during it...clearly she had been learning from both women well.

"General Hammond," said Aiyana eventually with a small bow, "allow me introduce Hermione Granger."

"Pleasure to meet you Ms Granger," nodded Hammond, "the Ambassador has briefed us on your situation...in light of that, you are always welcome in this command."

"Thank you, General."

"So..." said Jack with a smirk, "to what do we owe the...pleasure of your visit, ladies?"

"We have found the first sign on the road to the Lost City of the Alterans."

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_A/N: Sorry for the delay. But life is not currently giving me much time to write. Administering exams, marking, parents coming to visit etc. Refer to my bio page where I now post a chapter completion meter for folks who want to get an idea on when I will update._


	38. Chapter 38

_**Chapter Thirty-Eight - The Lost City**_

Antarctica was the youngest continent, at least with regards to humanity setting foot upon its surface for exploration. It is widely considered to be so difficult to live there that one might as well be on an alien world. Earth recorded its lowest temperature there; negative eighty nine degrees Celsius, it is essentially a frozen desert with very little precipitation.

Yet in the summer, over four thousand scientists of many different nationalities and different research interests call it home, with the number dwindling to one thousand during the winter. In addition, the place was now even home to a number of families, predominantly from Argentina, with children attending special schools that are set up in the living stations.

Harry found it a true testament to the human spirit of exploration, as he stared at McMurdo Station from the top of Observation Hill. It was Antarctica's largest community, science station, and it even included a harbour, three airfields, a heliport and over one hundred buildings for housing the population.

What was not so common knowledge was that McMurdo was also a staging area for the F302s assigned to the Sol patrol. Ever since then, anyone who worked at the station had to sign a non-disclosure agreement. Of course, only four dozen people knew the real score of what those strange looking planes were used for. The rest were told that they were top secret recon planes along the lines of the old SR71 Blackbird and that was usually enough to satisfy most people.

It was a little iffy with regards to the Antarctic Treaty, but it was really the only place to land and service the F302s in a relatively isolated area besides Area 51 and Tranquility Base on Luna. It also allowed the F302s to quickly respond to defend from attack on any incoming vector.

He shivered at a sudden cold gust and gave a mental instruction to his chromesuit and it snaked over his head and materialized the headpiece.

"Cold here, isn't it?"

He glanced to his left where Hermione stood, also observing the bustle of the Antarctic community.

"I've been to colder places," Harry grinned at her. "Though obviously always from within the comfort of the type of suit you're wearing…and you wear it well."

"Thanks," she also had her headpiece activated, so it was difficult to see her face, but he could feel the effect of his compliment. "Hard to imagine actually living here. I guess I've been spoiled by living in that island paradise of yours for too long."

"I can see why you've jumped on this opportunity," he nodded. "Though I am surprised that you didn't explore through the Stargate yourself, there was plenty of opportunity for it."

"I guess I felt that one whole new planet to explore was overwhelming enough without adding a whole Galaxy full of new ones," she chuckled. "Though don't get me wrong, it was very tempting…but I felt I needed to learn more, and be able to protect myself without using my powers too overtly."

"And can you?"

"With Apollonia's help and instruction I got the hang of it." Her head tilted slightly and a few small black igneous stones rose into the air and began to orbit around her in a complex dance.

"And not even a hand gesture, I'm impressed," grinned Harry, and soon stones under his own control joined hers and started chasing each other trying to knock each other out of the air…this was one of the classic control exercises that the Alterans who possessed a significant talent in Telekinesis did to keep their minds 'in shape' so to speak.

"Are you two having fun?"

Harry turned around and smiled at his wife who had appeared out of seemingly nowhere. Hermione was baffled that he was still successfully battling her stones despite the fact that his main attention was now on Apollonia. Guess it was just another one of those things that set him apart from the rank and file metaphysic.

"Indeed," he grinned. "Is everything ready?"

Apollonia nodded and he gestured for Hermione to precede him, both women vanished as they walked forward. He paused and stared at the town for another moment and followed in the same footsteps as his wife and…well…he really didn't know what to call his and Hermione's relationship anymore…girlfriend – that didn't have the gravitas of the truth…concubine – too demeaning…consort?

Perhaps. The three of them had consummated their feelings together the day after their arrival on Earth at Apollonia's urging. It was a wonderful experience to say the least.

He stepped forwards and emerged into the airlock of the now heavily modified and cloaked cargo ship obtained from Osiris a few years ago. The inner door opened to reveal the interior; the gaudy gold had been replaced with more practical Terran silvers and greys, with extra systems and their displays fitted all around the forward cockpit compartment.

Aiyana was seated in the pilot seat and doing the last part of her pre-flight, whilst Hermione took the co-pilot seat and looked to be doing a good job of doing a systems check and Apollonia was checking over the special cargo, the fruits of her very hard labours these past few months. Harry turned to SG1 who was kitted in standard recon gear and patiently waiting for the ship to get underway. Well, there was one exception.

"Is this going to take much longer?" Jack sighed and got a somewhat mock-severe look on his face. "I'm missing _The Simpsons_ you know."

"Forgot to set your VCR again Jack?" Harry grinned.

"We've had to make extensive modification to several key systems of this _vessel_, Colonel," Aiyana said, her tone making it clear what she thought of the Goa'uld ship, "so that it would be capable of this mission. I should think your experience with the X301 would make you appreciate all the time we are taking to make sure there are no complications."

"Oh, yeah…uh, thanks," Jack looked quite uncomfortable under the weight of the Alterans' stare.

"All systems are a go on my side," reported Hermione.

"Very well," nodded Aiyana. "Engine start sequence in progress…"

A sharp whine began to slowly build in the compartment, building up until it dulled down to a deep artificial rumbling sound that was consistent.

"Engines are online," nodded the Alteran in satisfaction and manipulated the red bee-eye controls and the ship shook slightly as it pushed itself into the air to hover invisibly at ten meters off the ground.

"Better get underway, we're kicking up a lot of snow," Jack squinted through the cockpit windows. Aiyana only nodded and the ship's nose turned and began to move south-south east at a relatively sedate pace of 300kph increasing altitude to four hundred meters.

"So where did you say the Outpost would be?" Daniel asked eagerly.

"The Stargate we used during my time was found only eighty kilometres from McMurdo," explained Aiyana. "Factoring glacial shift and my knowledge of where the Outpost was in relation to the where we kept that Gate, we were able to estimate the Outpost's position twenty five point three kilometres south-west from _that _position."

"That puts its position well onto the main ice shelf," deduced Sam.

"Yes, most likely at a depth of a mile or more," nodded Hermione.

"You're telling me we're gonna drill through that much ice in…oh, less than…" Jack trailed off, looking sceptical.

"…five minutes," Aiyana said.

"If a Gatebuilder says they can do a thing, O'Neill, I would take them at their word," Teal'C raised an eyebrow at Jack, with his hands clasped firmly behind his back. Jack just shrugged, clearly not wanting to go further in the direction the conversation was going. Ten minutes later the ship sped over the last of the great ice hills and mountains, and now there was a flat glacier almost as far as the eye could see in all directions.

"Well, this certainly looks like a good place to have a city, at least with regard to the flat terrain, so we're definitely on track," Harry mused.

"Bring the modified active sensors online," Aiyana instructed. Hermione nodded and turned her chair to a modified section of the cockpit where a holographic screen and keyboard interface flared to life. Her fingers dipped into the flat orange holographs and began to 'type' at a rapid rate.

"Molecular scan engaged, depth one hundred meters…four hundred…eight…twelve…still reading only ice and impurities…"

"Are you using a ground penetrating sensor of sorts for this?" asked Sam curiously.

"Yes," nodded Apollonia. "It's actually an Asgard sensor modified with some Alteran principles that will allow it to catalogue the matter despite the sheer amount of ice in the way."

"Sixteen hundred meters," reported Hermione, staring at the holoscreen with fascination. "Still nothing…though I know Geo-palaeontologists would kill for the readings I'm getting."

"I doubt they'd need to do that," Harry's mouth twitched. "When the full expedition team arrives they'll have plenty of time to study the ice that deep up close."

"Wait a second," Hermione suddenly squinted intently at the holo. "I've a reading on an alloy at eighteen hundred meters down."

"What kind?" asked Aiyana intently.

"Carbon, trinium, naquadah, and samarium."

"That's the support lattices of the Outpost all right," nodded Aiyana. "Bearing?"

"Two one three, two kilometres."

"We have arrived over the spot, have you managed to locate the Ring Transporter yet?"

"Still looking, I'm only reading two thirds of the Outpost intact…the rest might've been destroyed by the glacier's shift."

"That is likely," agreed Aiyana. "If the Rings are gone we'll just have to begin drilling until we can use the Asgard transporters."

"Hold it…got it!" cried Hermione in triumph. "I've got a lock. Transferring coordinates."

Aiyana fiddled with the controls, bringing the ship slowly into a hover in a new position but also at a much lower altitude, only fifty meters above the ice. "Now here comes the iffy part. To use the beam drill I've built into this ships' Ring transporter we have to drop the cloak."

"Whoah," temporized Jack holding his hands up. "Antarctica has a number of privately funded research satellites over it, how are we sure they're not gonna pick up on us. They can't focus on McMurdo, without getting thrown in jail, out here…"

"We can't be sure," said Aiyana levelly. "The beam drill is not something that you can render undetectable with EM containment measures; it's too powerful. Our only chance is to do it quick and hope none of those satellites spot us. There is nothing really interesting here to direct their attention, anyway."

"Beam drill is charged, Ring doors open," reported Hermione.

"Decloaking…firing drill." The ship rocked slightly and a deep cadence of energy resounded through the compartment. Harry could feel it through his feet and soon torrents of steam started to pour upwards and blanked out the forward viewports.

"The beam has reached one hundred meters…two…three…four…five…" Hermione said staring at her screen. The five minutes ticked by so slowly. Harry tapped his feet impatiently…finally, "Reaching eighteen hundred…now!"

"Beam drill off." Aiyana turned her pilot seat. "After you SG1."

"You heard the lady, folks," Jack led the way into the after cargo compartment and the four stepped into the Rings. Harry pressed the sequence into the controls and a moment later the characteristic screaming noise heralded the thick obsidian Rings shooting out of the floor and surrounding SG1; a flash of light, and the Rings retreated into the floor again.

"Cloaking systems reactivated."

"_Alpha, this is Sierra Golf One, we are in the Outpost, beginning sweep_."

"Understood," said Aiyana keying the com. "There shouldn't be anything down there, but be careful. You are in the central chamber, which is the strongest part of the Outpost, it should be structurally sound but don't touch anything until I've inspected it. The place might need reinforcing before it is safe to work in."

"_Roger that_."

Finally after ten minutes of waiting the all clear came through from Jack. Teal'C transported back up to keep someone at the controls of the ship, after which Harry, Apollonia (with her special container) and Aiyana stepped into the Transporter. The Rings surrounded them and after a flash, they retreated.

They had appeared in a nearly endless perfectly round shaft of ice, in front of them was an irregular gap that emerged into the Outpost. The air inside was cold and stale, but the walls, encrusted randomly in ice was typical of Alteran 'Romanesque' architecture; columns and geometric shapes were everywhere.

They even passed an emergency Stasis chamber embedded in one of the columns, which looked like it was to be used by the commander of the Outpost; since it was so close to the room beyond it…that housed the familiar ornate marble Control Chair.

Jack, Sam and Daniel had gathered here and the latter two were looking around in amazement; clearly walking around in an actual Alteran facility that was so close to home was something special. Daniel looked like he was in heaven as he seemingly buzzed around the walls with Alteran writing on, eagerly trying to interpret the extremely old dialect of the language that must be on the walls. Harry gave a brief glance at the writing and managed to read every odd word, he was not as fluent in the written form of Aiyana's dialect of Alteran as he wished to be.

"Amazing," said Sam, shaking her head. "That after so much time this place is in such a good relative condition…you guys sure knew how to build a place to last."

Aiyana accepted the compliment with a bow of her head, but her attention was riveted to her hand scanner that she was using to survey the structure of the Outpost around them. "Hmmm, the Outpost is structurally sound for the moment, but any excavations and defrosting will have to be done after I install some antigrav and structural supports. You can power it up." The last she directed to Apollonia, who nodded and opened the plastic case she had brought with her.

She pulled out of the support foam a brand new Zero-Point Subspace Power Module that was coloured in orange-green and about a foot in length. She brought it over to one side of the marble platform the Control Chair was mounted on and kneeled, waving her hand over a specific section. A fifteen centimetre circular section suddenly popped open and another Module – this one depleted and dead - rose out of the recess.

Apollonia carefully pulled it out and handed it over to Sam. "For you, Major, have fun." Sam's eyes widened and eagerly accepted it, placing it in her backpack. Apollonia carefully manoeuvred the fresh Module into place and after inspecting it pushed down…the Module lit with an inner glow and sank into place.

"Harry," prompted Aiyana.

He nodded and stepped onto the platform and sat on the Control Chair, which instantly lit up in a blue glow, sensing that one of its 'creators' sat in it. A moment later even the transparent sections on the platform also lit up.

"Excellent…you have full access to the Outpost's systems," said Aiyana, slightly wistfully.

"Uh, why didn't you do it, umm, I mean…you're the Alteran here," Daniel asked awkwardly.

"When my brethren left millions of years ago, they wanted to make sure that none of the infected Alterans – despite us giving our word that we would not do so - would be tempted to try and follow them, so not only did they not tell us where they went, but they locked us out of the Outpost' systems."

"Harsh," commented Jack.

"But prudent, and it was a decision I myself supported," said Aiyana.

Any further conversation was interrupted when a giant hologram appeared in the air over the Control Chair.

"That's the Solar system," Sam looked up with fascination at the real-time graphic representation of Sol. "We can see _Tranquility_, the Asgard base on Mars, their ships in orbit, even _Apollo_ and _Odyssey_ doing their shakedown runs around Jupiter."

"Okay, I'm going to try and bring up the current location of Atlantis," Harry said and closed his eyes - concentrating.

"That's its name?" Daniel's eyes looked like they wanted to pop out. "The Lost City of the Alterans, its Plato's mythical sunken city? Atlantis?"

"Yes," nodded Hermione. "I've been doing some research about it, and I think that one of the Alterans who came back to Earth ten thousand years ago may have told it to him."

"You forget Dr Jackson that Alterans can live a long, long time if we wish it," grinned Aiyana, seeing the archaeologist's astonishment. "I've no doubt that some of them may have decided to guide our second evolution through the millennia."

The hologram changed to show the gigantic form of the Milky Way galaxy over their heads. "Getting there," commented Harry. "I'm having to break through some pretty interesting security lockouts…they're almost like tests and puzzles to make sure I am worthy."

The hologram zoomed out again to show the entire local group of galaxies.

"Well, they definitely left the Milky Way, that is at least confirmation of that," said Hermione. "There's Ida, Andromeda…" Then a dwarf galaxy flashed with a highlight and a course was projected from the Milky Way to…

"Pegasus?" frowned Jack.

"Three million light years," breathed Sam in awe at that distance.

The Pegasus Galaxy grew in size until it dominated the air above them…finally a single star was highlighted and Alteran text appeared next to it, with an eight symbol Gate address.

"Whew, got it," said Harry, opening his eyes and looking above him. "Well, there's no way Terran ships can make that journey at the moment. We'd need to install Intergalactic Hyperdrives in them, and even then a journey there would take three weeks."

"What about the _Achilles_ and _Briseus_?" asked Sam.

"Four days give or take a few hours," he replied.

"Stargate?" asked Jack.

"Opening an intergalactic wormhole takes a huge amount of power, sir," Sam explained. "We'd need at least one of the new Mark 3 matrix fusion reactors we used in the _Apollo_ and _Odyssey_ powering the Gate to even make the connection…keeping it open for a reasonable amount of time…" she shook her head.

"Relax Major," said Apollonia, and gestured into the plastic case; inside was three more Power modules. "One of these will power the Earth Stargate for Intergalactic connections easily for years…the remaining two will be needed for Atlantis itself."

"Also since this Outpost is now powered up fully, it can be used as a last line of defence if Earth is ever attacked," explained Aiyana. "Underneath us is an entire silo full of Alteran Drone missiles."

"You mean those squid like things, that ignores shields completely and goes straight through them," said Jack with a silly grin.

"Yes, Jack," nodded Harry indulgently.

"Yes!" he grinned pumping his fist.

"Then let's get the expedition team down here, shall we?"

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**SGC Gateroom, Earth**

"_Unscheduled off-world activation. General Hammond, Ambassador Potter to the Control Room_."

Harry rushed down the circular staircase in Hammond's wake directly from the Briefing Room; where they had been reviewing candidates for the Atlantis Expedition – when Sergeant Walter had called over the PA. As usual, the Precog called it out a minute before the Gate actually did anything.

The event horizon exploded in a waterlike surge of energy and settled down; the shield activated and the Iris closed, whilst SF troops charged into the Gateroom, training PR8s and P90s on the Stargate.

"It's SG1 IDC, sir. Code Red. Audio coming in," reported Walter, working at his controls.

"On speaker," ordered Hammond.

"_Close quarters withdrawal. It's going to get ugly_." Jack's harassed voice came through the speakers with the characteristic sound of staff blasts and the whine of plasma fire from PR8s.

"Acknowledged, Colonel. We'll be ready, just give us the word," said Hammond speaking into the mounted microphone. He switched channels to the Gateroom PA, addressing the soldiers. "Watch your friendlies. Safeties off. Clean targets. Clean backgrounds."

"_Teal'c! Let's go. Base, this is it! We're on our way_."

"Lower Gate defences," ordered the General.

The red glow of the shield vanished and the iris slid open…just in time, moments later Daniel, Sam and Jack appeared running through the event horizon and down the ramp. Following them was the orange plasma of staff blasts that spent themselves against the perimeter shields protecting the Control room.

"Teal'c's right behind us!" shouted Sam, diving for cover on the side of ramp.

A moment later Teal'C appeared at a run as well, but with him came a Jaffa. The enemy Jaffa was riddled with plasma and bullet fire in short order, but managed to get a shot off before crumpling in a heap on the ramp. The Stargate defenses engaged and the shield flared a few times as more staff blasts hit it, but soon enough the wormhole disengaged.

"Clear!" Hammond barked and everyone safetied their weapons.

Harry let out a sigh of relief, but his eyes widened as he saw that Teal'C was standing with his back to everyone facing the gate and smoke curled around his body. The stoic warrior toppled backward like a huge tree that had finally been cut down and crashed against the ramp. Harry saw the staff wound directly over Teal'C's abdomen and Apparated on the spot into the Gate room.

"Med team, get in there!"

Harry knelt next to the prone Teal'C and with a gesture, Vanished the clothes from his torso. Janet and her team arrived on the scene and she gasped at the wound. That last staff blast had hit Teal'C in the worst spot a Jaffa could be wounded…the symbiote pouch. It was a forgone conclusion that the larval Goa'uld was dead already. But it was now releasing its toxic lifeblood as it died.

"Dammit!" cursed Harry. He held his hand over the pouch and Summoned the dead larva out of Teal'C, including as much of its toxic blood as possible.

It was an odd, macabre sight; a small ruined Goa'uld parasite, with its purple blood hovering in globules above Harry's hand. He absentmindedly vanished all of it with a thought as Janet attached medical sensors to Teal'C.

"What's the toxicity?" asked Harry urgently.

"Three cc's managed to get into his system before you pulled the parasite out," said Janet looking at the medical laptop computer readouts.

"Shit!" Harry's mind raced as he pondered a solution, Teal'C had no immune system for him to energize. He could heal the staff wound no problem but that poison was the crux of the matter. He had an idea but it was a shot in the dark. _No choice_, the situation was desperate. "Give me a scalpel." He held his hand out to Janet. Dr Frasier internally balked at having an amateur help her patient, but this amateur had in a few seconds done more than she could've imagined possible. She sighed and pulled out a scalpel out of her portable medkit.

Harry took it and swiftly without even hesitating made a deep incision directly under Teal'C's chest bone. Blood immediately started to pour out of Teal'C but Harry halted it with a carefully controlled constant telekinetic push against the wound. He brought all his concentration to bear on his next act and Summoned the poison itself from within the bloodstream.

After three seconds which to Harry felt like an eternity the blood held back on Teal'C's chest turned purple. He pulled his hand away and there was the three cc's hovering in mid-air. It was vanished again and Harry placed his hands into direct contact with Teal'C's head and the wound.

Harry gasped and his back arched as he worked on an atomic level to repair the wounds. The incision and staff wound started to visibly pulse with white light and a few moments later the wounds were gone.

He slumped back onto the ramp, allowing Janet to do her thing. "C'mon, we have to get him in antibiotic isolation stat!" she called to her team as they secured Teal'C on a stretcher and carried him away.

Harry felt a hand on his shoulder.

"Thanks," said Jack seriously.

"He's not out of the woods yet," Harry shook his head. "He needs a new symbiote, and that guy is gonna be no help." They watched as another med team carried away the dead Jaffa that had shot Teal'C. The Jaffa was riddled with plasma burns all over; there was no way his symbiote would've survived. "Help me up." Jack grabbed Harry's arm, pulled him up and steadied him on his feet.

"We need to contact Selmak."

"Why?"

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**Briefing Room 1, SGC, Earth**

"Colonel O'Neill planted my radio in the underbrush away from our position and began broadcasting to create a distraction. The Jaffa fell for this diversion and half of them left the temple. We engaged the rest and escaped," reported Sam to General Hammond.

"Were you able to ascertain who these Jaffa were loyal to?" asked the General.

"Their forehead tattoos were of various System Lords but the majority bore the symbol of Ba'al," Daniel spoke up next.

"Ba'al?" the General frowned. "I thought we killed him when we rescued Colonel O'Neill with the _Prometheus_."

"The bastard seemingly managed to snake his way out before we destroyed his weapon complex," Jack said forbiddingly.

"His empire has expanded further and faster than anyone could have expected. Which shouldn't be a surprise to us since he now controls the combined forces of the United Alliance of the System Lords. Something they had to do out of necessity to combat Anubis, until we removed him, at least temporarily, from domination."

At that point Harry and Jacob Carter entered the room and Sam got up to hug her father in greeting. Harry stood at an empty spot of the table, with Jacob in his Tok'ra brown leather uniform taking a seat next to him. Dr Frasier was summoned and soon she arrived looking quite harried.

"How is Teal'C doing?" asked Harry.

"Unconscious and stable for the moment," said Janet with a tired sigh. "But that's going to change, even in a sterile environment, without a symbiote, Teal'C is going to get progressively worse. The natural bacteria in his digestive system that would normally help him digest food is going to slowly cause him to get infection, there's also no way we can give him totally bacteria free food. And keeping him on a drip is not ideal."

"Well, I've called Jacob here for a possible solution to this," Harry said, and then his head dipped and his eyes flashed white. "**Greetings**," said Egeria. "**You remember this?**" Jacob placed a vial of a luminescent purple substance on the table.

"What's that?" asked Jack with a frown.

"It's Tretonin, sir," Sam said with an air of realization.

"Whoa, that's ground Goa'uld, isn't it?"

"It's a little more refined than that, Jack," Jacob said. "But yes, it's derived from Goa'uld symbiotes."

"It supplanted the immune systems of the Pangarans, why couldn't it do the same for the Jaffa?" Sam frowned at Janet, clearly wondering why they didn't think of this earlier.

"I've considered it," Janet reported, "it won't work. The sample I studied was designed to take the place of a human immune system. It wouldn't even work now for an Earth-born Terran."

"Egeria and I have since refined it specifically for Jaffa physiology," explained Jacob.

"**The Tok'ra have been looking forward to an end of the Jaffa's dependence for centuries,**" Egeria gestured to the vial. "**We've been working on this Tretonin variant ever since I was rescued from the Pangarans**. **But with Harry's help we've taken it even further**."

Jacob stood from his chair and picked up a larger plastic sterile container and opened it, turning so everyone could see what was inside.

"It looks like a…small, silver gray…something," Jack trailed off. "Nevermind."

"**What you are seeing**," grinned Egeria, "**is a biosynthetic device specifically designed to fit inside a Jaffa's symbiote pouch and uses a liquid naquadah cell to power a very small synthesizer that creates Tretonin and releases it into the Jaffa's body as needed**."

"You're joking!" said Janet in astonishment.

"**Fortunately, I am not, Dr Frasier**," replied Egeria. "**There is a problem, however. While I am confident in the Tretonin Synthesizer's (TS) performance, the Tretonin variant it creates has not been tested.**"

"But even if it does work, I mean, Teal'C and any Jaffa we help in this same manner will become dependant on the Tretonin as the Pangarans," Janet objected.

"It will take a generation of genetic research to reverse the root cause of the Jaffa's dependence on symbiotes. We will solve that problem eventually, but at least Teal'C will be alive," said Jacob.

"If I knew for a fact that this is what Teal'C wanted…" sighed Janet shaking her head.

"Janet, this is the first significant step that could lead to freedom from Goa'uld oppression for all Jaffa. That's something Teal'C would want more than anything," pleaded Sam.

"Do it," ordered Hammond.

"Yes, sir," relented Janet.

"Teal'C without Junior. That's a concept."

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**SGC Infirmary**

Harry entered the room and spied Teal'C lying rather stiffly in his assigned bed in the Infirmary.

"Ambassador Potter." The Jaffa tried to sit up but Harry waved him down to not bother.

"Relax Teal'C, rest," said Harry intently. "It took a bit of trial and error to get your Tretonin Synthesizer calibrated to give the correct dosage, until we're sure there's no residual infection and the device is working properly, you'll have to stay under observation."

Teal'C visibly backed down into his bed. "You and Egeria have given my people more than you can know on this day. We can never repay this debt."

"You can repay it by making sure that when your people's freedom is gained, that they know what to do with it," Harry's face turned to a grin, but then he spied four small pots of green jello with three empty and a fourth with a spoon still in it.

"I never knew you liked jello?"

"O'Neill. I believe his offer of colored gelatin was his attempt to celebrate that fact that I no longer need a Goa'uld within me."

"That's Jack, for you, he's thoughtful that way," chuckled Harry.

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He sighed as he entered his quarters in the SGC. It had been a long, long day. The brief drama with Teal'C losing his symbiote punctuated a period that was filled with looking at file after file of personnel who could be assigned to the Atlantis Expedition. It wasn't an easy thing – finding people who would want to go to another Galaxy if offered was sort of hard to do – it wasn't like they could ask this question in the Psych evaluations, especially of those who still had to receive clearance.

Another big question was who could be trusted to lead the Expedition. Aiyana was the first and obvious name to pop up, but she had politely declined, preferring to step into the 'Advisor/Ambassador/Soldier' role for Atlantis, the one he himself occupied in the SGC. General Hammond had even suggested that Harry take it, but he declined as well, stating that until Anubis and the majority of the Goa'uld had been thrown down from power, he would remain in the Milky Way (besides if he was desperately needed to help out, he could simply Gate to Atlantis) That meant the leader would have to be a Terran.

But what type of person should it be? Military, Scientist, Civilian diplomat. Ideally, all of the above. Someone who could open a whole new frontier for exploration.

He had barely put down the case carrying a dozen of the files he had yet to review, when his left hand was seized by another and pulled, jerking him towards his bed. The next thing he felt was that he was sandwiched between two nude, deliciously curvy bodies. Hands clawed at his Alteran robes and in short order he was divested of them.

His wife captured his face between her hands and their lips met; passion and love shot through him with the feel of their joined lips and competing tongues. Her body melted into his and from behind he felt Hermione's lips moving down his neck and soon she also wrapped herself around him. The feeling of them encapsulating him was enough to drive all rational thought away and surrender to the experience.

He was pushed again, and fell on the bed, joined moments later by wife and consort. Apollonia smiled wickedly and pulled Hermione under him, whose legs parted and locked around him. A distant part of his mind wondered how they could be so ready so quickly – when he realized they had obviously warmed each other up before this without him. He would make them pay for that.

He felt Hermione's wet heat surround him, and she mewled in pleasure. She bucked her hips into him, meeting each thrust, but reached ecstasy halfway before he was even close to achieving his own. He grabbed her legs, easily pulling them away from his waist and pushed them forward, almost folding her in half and continued. Soon she was absolutely gone, lost to it, practically screaming. Her clenching finally did him in, and groaned as he felt the release within her.

He withdrew and fell back.

Finally after a time, without speaking but signaling with their minds, he moved to Apollonia's left and Hermione took the right. They each held down an arm and a leg. His lips found his wife's again, as his right hand began to sensually explore the beautiful territory he knew so well all over again, finding the right spots, Hermione mirroring the actions on the other side.

Apollonia was soon a quivering moaning mass, shifting, desperately trying to find release and fulfillment from the merciless teasing and pleasuring. In the union, their minds built on and mirrored their passion and love, raising it to delirious heights that couldn't be described in words.

He eventually decided that his wife had been punished enough and he plunged himself into her abruptly, causing her to cry out in surprise and then moaning in pleasure as his thrusting pounded into her.

When he collapsed after spending himself again, only then did he wonder if they had thought to put up Silencing fields. They had all been rather vocal.

The thought was driven away when Hermione straddled him.

It was going to be a long, long night.

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**Stargate Control Room**

Harry entered the hub of the SGC blearily sipping on a mug of coffee and was rather surprised to see Daniel normally occupying the spot that the duty Sergeant controlling the Gate would occupy. Sergeant Davis was sitting at the diagnostic station and occasionally giving the archeologist a gimlet eye.

Daniel was squinting at what seemed to be the Stargate activity logs.

"Dr Jackson?"

"Hmm, oh, morning Ambassador," he said distractedly and continued his steady perusal.

"What you looking for?"

"I dunno."

"What?"

"I mean, lately I've been getting this feeling that I've forgotten something important…I've been hearing screams of suffering in my mind, and all I know is that it has something to do with an incoming wormhole somehow," explained Daniel.

"You're thinking this has something to do during the time when you were Ascended?"

"Yeah, but so far nothing I've seen here has jogged my memory."

Jack entered the room, clearly having just come from breakfast in the cafeteria. "Still nothing?" he asked nonchalantly.

"Well, I've broadened myself to any Gate activity including outgoing wormholes and unauthorized activations. Still have no idea what I'm looking for," sighed Daniel

"Maybe if you stop thinking about it it'll come to you." Daniel gave Jack an incredulous look. "Take a break. Fraiser says that Teal'C's been cleared for active duty, his TS thing checked out."

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**Briefing Room 1, SGC**

It wasn't long before Daniel called for a Briefing to discuss some new memories that had surfaced from his time as an Ascended. He had joined Teal'C in one of his Kel'No'Reem meditation sessions and seemingly managed to recover the reason why he had been hearing those screams.

"I saw Bratac and Rya'c in some form of prison labor camp. They were being worked extremely hard, and it almost looked like the Goa'uld version of a Russian gulag. There was also a Ha'tak under construction in the distance…"

"Interesting," murmured Harry. "That you can remember this from when you were ascended is amazing. I thought that Oma had put a permanent block on those parts of your memories."

"Well it seems that's not the case," Daniel retorted.

"Dr Jackson, do you have any sense of time from when this event occurred?" Hammond queried seriously. This question startled Daniel considerably.

"So you believe me?" he said in astonishment.

"The things I've heard sitting in this chair?" Hammond said with irony and amusement.

"If this happened before you retook Terran form, then Bratac and Rya'c could've been imprisoned and under torture for months already," Sam deduced, getting back to the point.

"That is why we must act immediately," rumbled Teal'C.

"Daniel, you said you thought all this had to do with Gate records. Perhaps you innately knew to look for a location."

"I've been through those records upside-down and backwards, I still haven't found anything," Daniel's shoulders slumped and his face was a picture of frustration.

"Teal'C, is there anything familiar about the planet Daniel described?" Harry said.

"There is not. General Hammond, I request that we send for Rak'nor immediately."

"Do it."

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**Daniel's Office, SGC, Earth**

Rak'nor stared at the rather crudely drawn map Daniel had made of the labor camp. Harry wondered why the person who was in effect the third in command of the Jaffa Rebellion (at least the faction of it that was supported by Earth) had not informed them of Bratac and Rya'c capture sooner. Then again if he put himself in their shoes, if any member of the SGC was captured they would try anything within their power to effect a rescue…and only call on allies if it was really necessary.

"Any of this familiar to you? A planet with two moons, a naqahdah refinery with some sort of antigravity dry dock nearby, with a mothership under construction?"

"I know the planet of which you describe. Erebus," said Rak'nor to Daniel.

"According to Greek mythology, Erebus is a place where condemned souls pass as soon as they die."

"Then it is aptly named. The planet is used for the construction of Ha'tak vessels and the purification of the naquadah to build them. Only Jaffa prisoner labor is used, it is only they can stand the intense heat and toxic gases of the blast furnaces fed by underground volcanic systems. Eventually even the Jaffa succumbs."

"I am aware of such places. Where Jaffa prisoners of war unwilling to serve a new Goa'uld master are taken to be worked to death," Teal'C said his posture stiff and expression dark. Harry could tell he was worrying about his son.

"Which would make it the perfect place to recruit rebels but something must have gone wrong," mused Daniel.

"The planet was recently taken by Ba'al."

"Which makes it a prime target for a raid by Earth, especially if we want to bring Ba'al down a peg to keep him from dominating over the rest," Harry stated.

"An attack from space is fraught with danger, while there are no Ha'tak guarding it directly, powerful sensors keep a watch over it, any incursion by a ship would be detected by Ba'al's sector fleet. The Stargate is also impenetrable."

"How so?" Harry could practically hear Teal'C jaws grinding together in frustration.

"There is a force field much like yours that blocks the Erebus Stargate, making attack or rescue through it impossible."

"Someone must get through it somehow," retorted Daniel.

"We believe a signal must be used to power down the force field, but we have no way of knowing what that signal is," Rak'nor explained.

Any further conversation was useless, as suddenly Daniel was moving out the door of his office with an impressive turn of speed and was gone. Harry could have sworn the man had Apparated accidentally for a moment.

"I think it would be good idea to follow," he grinned.

They found Daniel in the Stargate Control Room, standing rather impatiently behind Sam who was sitting at the Dialing Computer and tapping away at the keys.

"I was there. I saw the whole thing happen. Nothing I could do but just watch. Powerless to interfere," he said bitterly.

"As an ascended you were forbidden to interfere," Harry tried to placate him.

Daniel shrugged it off shaking his head, clearly he didn't want to let go of his guilt. "Come on, it has to be there!" he said insistently to Sam.

"Just give me a minute." She replied more gently than Harry would've thought.

"I knew it had something to do with Gate records, I just never thought of checking the Alpha Site Gate records," Daniel remonstrated himself.

"Here," said Sam, pointing to an event log displayed on the thin plasma screen, "a coded energy signal was received and recorded through the Alpha Site Gate three months ago. It was analyzed but no one was able to determine its origin or its purpose."

"That is the force field deactivation code I saw Bratac send right before he was captured," Daniel said with dead certainty.

"Are you sure?" Sam asked despite Daniel's tone.

"I am sure," he repeated, even more firmly, if that was possible.

"I can synthesize this energy signature. If it is the deactivation code I can get us through the Gate."

"And I can provide details of the defenses and the lay of the land."

"Then what are we waiting for? They're not having a picnic out there."

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**Erebus**

The Jaffa of Ba'al guarding the Stargate turned as the Alteran device began locking in coordinates for an incoming subspace path. Their weapons were trained automatically on it, but they soon relaxed as the orange force field came online and surrounded the Gate. However, they were completely surprised when it suddenly came down and a shock grenade slurped through. Bright light, sound and energy overwhelmed the nervous systems of the Jaffa column, causing all of them to slump into unconsciousness.

SG1, SG3, Harry and Rak'nor appeared, PR8s and Staff weapons trained and ready to fire, sweeping the clearing around the Gate.

"Clear," called Sam, when it apparent that the shock grenade had done its job.

"Okay. So. That happened. SG-3, secure these guys," he pointed to the insensate Jaffa littering the area, "Then establish a perimeter. Daniel…" Jack gestured the archeologist to lead the way.

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Daniel led them through a forest and then turned abruptly east for a mile and finally stopped at the base of a steep ridge. He used rudimentary military gestures to tell them that the labor camp was on the other side of it.

Jack gave much more accurate gestures and the teams spread out to form a firing line and began to climb the ridge, falling to prone against the lip of it, to prevent their silhouettes from being spotted against the sky.

The labor camp was a horrible affair; motley tents for the workers, choking fumes, and harsh taskmasters brandishing whips that routinely lashed out at the Jaffa prisoners. The camp was in a deep artificial valley created by open cast mining of the Naquadah, with guard positions in towers with a clear view of anyone trying to escape the perimeter.

Jack studied the place through binoculars taking note of everything; guard positions, numbers, sight lines, areas of cover and so on.

"No sign of Bra'tac. Wait a minute, I've got Rya'c," Sam reported, squinting her eyes.

"Nice to have such good vision," commented Jack idly.

"I can Infiltrate easily," suggested Harry, ignoring the byplay. "I can find Bratac, Rya'c and sow a little insurrection from within."

"Rak'nor and I will accompany you," insisted Teal'C. Harry nodded; it could easily be worked around.

"The numbers will not be in your favour, not to mention the guard towers," countered Sam.

"That's why we need a distraction when it all goes down," mused Jack. "A _big_ distraction." His eyes gestured to the Ha'tak that was under construction within the dry dock.

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**Erebus Labour Camp**

In the evening - Harry, Teal'C and Rak'nor penetrated the perimeter under Disillusionment and Phasing; the latter provided by Tollan made gauntlets that he handed out to both Jaffa. It provided a nice cover for his use of metaphysics as well – for Rak'nor did not know of it.

They had observed the tent that Rya'c had retreated to when the day's back breaking labour had ended and headed for it. The whole experience was rather startling for Rak'nor; at one point the Camp Commander - an albino Jaffa – had came out of a tent after heaping abuse on one of the prisoners, and walked straight through the surprised 3IC of the Jaffa Rebellion.

Entering Rya'c's tent made Harry wince at the poor conditions inside; the beds were no more than crudely cobbled together wooden poles with hay on top and thin blankets, chamberpots were filled with body waste, and only added to the pervasive smell from the volcanic furnaces that permeated the entire area.

Bratac was lying on one cot, clearly exhausted, and stained by soot, judging by his laboured breathing – his age clearly wasn't helping his survival in this place. Rya'c, on the other hand, though tired, still seemed to have some life in him, as he sat on his bed holding his head in his hands.

Harry gestured to his companions to de-phase themselves and secure the lip of the tent to shield them from view outside.

When that was done, Harry willed a Silence sphere over the tent and dropped the Disillusionment.

"Rya'c," Teal'C said softly, causing Rya'c to nearly jump in surprise off his bed. The young Jaffa was immediately enveloped in a strong hug by his father.

"Father! I am sorry. Master Bra'tac said that you would come but I did not believe."

"How is he?" Teal'C stepped away from his son, to kneel next to the bed of his old mentor.

"He still lives but—I fear not for long. The **he'shak** commanding this camp is merciless and forces him to work much more than the others."

"Tek'ma'te," said Bratac weakly, grasping Teal'C's arm, "old friend. Rak'nor. Ambassador…seeing you brings an old man hope."

"Master Bratac," nodded Harry respectfully. "I have brought something that should help." His hand rose to show a triangular silver device on his palm that was actually the Alteran version of the Goa'uld Healing hand device. It glowed white and he placed it on the Jaffa Leader's chest – Harry aided matters by adding his own powers by placing his free hand on Bratac's forehead.

Gasping, Teal'C mentor jerked suddenly and sat up, looking as if his fatigue had just been instantly washed away.

"Amazing," said Bratac in quiet astonishment, staring at his own hands and flexing them.

"Your energy levels are quite high at the moment, but it will settle down to normal after ten minutes, so don't let it fool you," explained Harry, standing up.

"I assume you have a plan of escape?" Bratac stood and had to lean on Teal'C for a moment to regain his balance with the head rush.

"Indeed," nodded Teal'C with a grin on his face that looked like the proverbial cat.

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Rya'c emerged from the tent the next morning. The plan his father and the Tau'ri had made to liberate the camp was bold in its simplicity, yet also very clever. His own part would be to spread word to the various prisoners as subtly as possible; so that they would be ready to take the weapons from the fallen guards.

With shovel in hand he slowly went about the daily toil of mining naquadah, speaking brief words to any prisoner he happened to be working next to, and for them to spread the word to any others.

It was when the albino commander started to make his rounds that he zeroed in on Rya'c.

"You!" spat the commmander. "Where is that accursed leader of **shol'va**? Finally died has he?"

Rya'c would on any other day have meekly continued to shovel dirt and taken the verbal barb and insult. But this was not such a day. He turned to face the **he'sha**k and snarled defiantly, "He still lives, and on this day, you will die…it's a pity it cannot be by Bratac's hand."

The prisoners within the general vicinity stopped working and turned to the scene.

"You dare speak to me that way, shol'va! You who's cursed by the wearer of horns!" roared the commander. He turned to the guards and was about to order them to take Rya'c for a swift execution by staff weapon…

It was at that moment that the roar of an explosion echoed over the area…all eyes turned to the Ha'tak encased within the anti-gravity platform; the emitters on one side flickered and died. The mothership tilted catastrophically and it crashed against the ground; the incomplete hull shattered and broke into large sections, but the view was quickly obscured by the dust and debris kicked up from the impact.

The Camp Commander turned back to Rya'c his face promising murder and massacre. It was his last act as his head abruptly swiveled far more than nature ever intended. He simply collapsed in a boneless heap on the floor, dead instantly with his neck broken. The surprised guards on either side of their dead commander were flung into air high, higher, flying further and further until…they disappeared into the far horizon.

"TAKE THEM NOW!"

Rya'c turned to the shout, to see Bratac emerging from his tent with Teal'C and Rak'nor, PR7s and Staff Weapon blasts screaming out into the morning air. They were joined by echoing shots, that came from the far edge of the mine…their targets became soon apparent as the Jaffa guards manning the watch towers tumbled out of them; their torso's ruined to shreds.

The prisoners were quick to answer the call of battle and grabbed the dead guards weapons, felling more guards and allowing others weapons. There would never be enough for everybody, and so hand to hand melee's erupted as the prisoners in some cases overwhelmed guards with sheer numbers.

Rya'c saw a PR7 seemingly materialize out of nowhere in front of him and accepted it gratefully from the Tau'ri Ambassador – who had been keeping an invisible watch over him the entire time. Just in time it seemed, because a guard brought his weapon to bear on a prisoner fighting another guard as they wrestled for control over a staff weapon. Rya'c brought the weapon up in the 'guard position' as he had been instructed by the elite Tau'ri warriors or 'Seals' as they had called themselves, and swiftly felled two guards with quick three shot bursts.

More shots echoed throughout the open cast mine, and ruined more guards and in one case cut the guard completely in half. Rya'c was astonished at the sheer power of the Tau'ri long range weapon for a moment. The whine of a Tau'ri weapon erupted next to him, and he whirled to see a guard slumping dead to the ground, who had been about to fire a staff at him.

"Thank you, Ambassador!" Rya'c said sheepishly, shooting a guard that had been pinning down a knot of prisoners.

"You're welcome!" came the shout back in answer from behind.

"FREEDOM!"

The shout came from Teal'C as the last guard died.

"FREEDOM!" the prisoners answered.

"FREEDOM!"

"FREEDOM!"

**SGC Gate Room**

Bratac sat on a stretcher, a wound he had sustained on his forehead during the fighting being tended to by Dr Frasier. SG1, Harry, Rya'c and Rak'nor emerged from the event horizon and were greeted by a smiling General Hammond.

"Welcome back."

"The camp has been liberated, Sir. All the prisoners relocated to the Alpha Site," reported Jack.

"They are all anxious to join the rebellion, and see hope for the first time," Rak'nor stated.

"Then my mission has been a success. Hammond of Texas, I find myself once more in your debt," Bratac said humbly.

"I think it is Doctor Jackson you owe on this one," the General nodded towards Daniel.

"Indeed," Teal'C bowed his head gratefully to his friend. Daniel, stunned and humbled as well, could only bow his head in response.

**Antarctica, Earth**

There were many ways for Harry to get to the Alteran Outpost. He could take the newly repaired MEV; he could ask the patrolling Destroyer in orbit for a beam up; he could even Apparate himself there or create a Translocator (the fancy technospeak for Portkey), but because he had to escort two relative rookies of the Stargate Program to the Outpost, they had to take the 'normal' way. 'Normal' in this case being a synonym for loud, slow, and uncomfortable.

Which was why he was in the co-pilot seat of a dark blue Bell helicopter, modified to work in the frigid temperatures of the Continent, and capable of seating four – flying at just over three hundred kilometers per hour over the icy landscape. He was also in the RAF issue arctic gear, with his Air Commodore lapels nicely on display.

In the rear seat, Harry could see the newly minted and fully briefed leader of the Atlantis Expedition, looking rather pensively over the frozen wastes.

Her name was Brigadier General Katherine Theron.

Short brown hair framed her face, which looked like a distinct blend of Northern European features married with perhaps a bit of Asian around the cheeks, dark eyes peered with an experience and age that belied her youthful looking face – the dreams of many women were answered with the Great Leap; for she was actually in her late forties, but looked like she had just come out of College. She had a tall, slim build, her legs struggling to fit into the narrow seating space of the helicopter.

"Penny for your thoughts, General?" Harry asked into the heavy headphones that allowed the occupants of a helicopter to talk to each other over the deafening noise.

"It'll cost a lot more than that, Commodore," she retorted wryly, her eyes still taking in the landscape – it was her first visit after all.

"I don't doubt it," said Harry. "It's not everyday that you're asked to lead Earth into a new Galaxy."

"Certainly different from my usual duties," she nodded. General Theron; was one of the few women – you could count the others on one hand – who had risen to flag rank in the South African Armed Forces. She had initially enlisted as a green Private in the Army – causing a great scandal. _A woman in the Army, impossible_. However, her circumstances in life smoothed things out somewhat – orphaned at a young age, growing up in State run Boarding schools, truly excellent academic scores and physical prowess. A sympathetic recruiter and someone who had an eye on talent and not on gender, did the rest.

It was clear within the first five years, when she had gained the rank of Corporal working as a Radio Operator in the Border Wars, that was she was being wasted in the enlisted ranks. Three years later she was Second Lieutenant Theron, and in charge of all the Comms in an entire sector of the South African border with Angola.

She had found a taste for the sciences in Officer School, and continued with her studies. Harry honestly wondered if she was perhaps 'smarter' than he was, because anyone with ten degrees, three Masters, and a Doctorate to their name had to have some serious grey matter in their heads, and this was before the Great Leap.

By the time she reached her Colonelcy, the South African government changed hands out of the lunacy that was institutionalized racial segregation and into the hands of its people. She survived the political storm and reorganization of the South African Defense force, to eventually attain a flag rank four years afterwards. She had sharpened her teeth in numerous peacekeeping assignments on the African continent since – which unlike the UN concept of it – actually involved active combat, suppression of fighting and preventing mindless slaughter

.

More recently, she had been assigned to the STO and had spent half a year at Area 51 and a brief two month tour in _Tranquility_ before Harry had plucked her out for the Atlantis Expedition.

Harry turned to their pilot for a moment and wondered what it took to 'want' to be an Air Force Helicopter pilot on Antarctica. Oh, he knew all about the flavored service history of Major John Sheppard – he made a point to study the file of anybody who was going to fly him in any 'terrestrial' craft. But why would you accept what was clearly military 'exile' in Antarctica? His skills would've fetched a six figure salary in the private sector, but he still eked out his existence here for some reason.

"So what are you qualified in, Major?" Harry wondered.

"Apache, Black Hawk, Cobra, Osprey," the man rattled off in quick succession, neither sounding humble nor boasting about it.

"That's a lot of training for the Antarctic."

"It was the one continent I never set foot on," Sheppard's rough handsome features twisted slightly in a grin, his eyes hidden behind a pair of dark aviators' glasses.

"I'm finding it to be a less than pleasant experience; it's too cold here," said Theron flatly, "though it has its charm."

"I kinda like it here," admitted Sheppard.

"You like it here?" Theron asked somewhat astonished.

"Yes, Ma'am, be there in ten minutes, Ma'am."

Their tranquil flight was interrupted when a voice broke through on the emergency channel, clearly broadcasting from the Outpost.

"_All inbound craft we have a rogue drone that could seek a target on its own. Land immediately and shut down your engines. This is not a drill. I repeat…_"

"Too late," snapped Sheppard and immediately threw the helicopter into evasive maneuvers. Harry grabbed a hold of a handle above his head to brace himself against the sudden Gs and could see a thin yellow streak in the distance rapidly closing on them.

"Fuck, when I said they could experiment, I didn't mean to fire a bloody drone!" cursed Harry.

The drone weapon failed to get an initial lock and zipped past the chopper, coming back around, only for Sheppard to bank in another direction relative to its heading, forcing it to overshoot twice. But the drone would not be fooled forever.

"Break right!" ordered Harry, noticing the weapon homing in on their port side. Sheppard instead pushed the chopper left. "I said right!"

"I'll get to that, sir!" Sheppard strained out as he only now banked right. The drone missed again as it shot off to the left. "Shit, I lost it, I can't see it!"

"It passed into our blind spot," Theron said tightly.

"Pull up! Pull up!" snapped Harry, seeing that Sheppard was diving the chopper to the deck, and cutting it close, clearly trying a maneuver kill on the drone, and unbelievably it seemed to work…the drone shot into the hill of snow, disappearing from view.

"Land, land!" ordered Harry hurriedly. Sheppard flared the chopper, using the main rotors to slow dramatically, before simply dropping the Collective – which controlled altitude - with his right hand. The helicopter practically dumped itself onto the hard snow; Harry felt as if his stomach wanted to spill out of his mouth. "Shut it down!" Sheppard pulled the emergency engine levers from the upper control panel, which promptly whined to a stop, whilst the rotors kept spinning under their own momentum – which was rapidly being lost.

"Sir, that wasn't a…" began Sheppard clearly at a loss, for no missile in his experience could have such a high endurance nor was that smart in adapting to evasive maneuvers. Harry had not had a chance yet to fully brief the pilot on…well _anything_, Sheppard had his clearance, but that was it.

"Wait for it," interrupted Harry, the drone had not exploded yet, meaning it was still on their tail, it would simply phase itself through anything to get to its target.

And in that moment it burst out of the snow and sped with lethal finality to their chopper, clearly attracted by the heat bloom of the craft against the cold environment, and with subspace sensors giving terminal guidance.

"Get out!" shouted Sheppard.

Harry reacted in an instant – grabbing hold of both Theron and Sheppard, and Apparated out of the helicopter. After the horrible squeezing sensation of the narrow subspace path, all three reappeared five hundred meters away and abruptly fell on their behinds in chilling cold snow.

Sitting up, Harry stared at the yellow streak that bore down on the helicopter and was given another surprise when the squid shaped missile – two seconds from impact – abruptly died, and simply fell to the earth and skidded on the snow to a stop barely a meter from the chopper.

"That was different," said Sheppard, standing up, completely stained in snow.

Theron shook her head, "Getting shot at in a helicopter?"

"No Ma'am, never met anyone who could Leap, let alone take passengers…and the never-ending missile."

"Major, this is just the tip of the iceberg," grinned Harry.

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**Alteran Outpost, Antarctica**

A dome had been constructed over the deep shaft that had been drilled in the ice – shielding it from view and serving as a means to control who was able to enter the Outpost itself. A section of octagonal composite segments had been shattered thanks to the rogue drone – but provision had been made for this eventuality, and already spares were being moved by technicians to be installed.

Harry led Theron and Sheppard towards the rugged construction lift that spanned the height of the ice shaft, and after a final clearance check, they were allowed to descend.

Finally, after a lengthy ride the elevator slammed to a stop, and its gates lifted to allow them access to the Outpost – which was positively brimming with activity; engineers, checking and reinforcing structural integrity whilst studying the Alteran construction; scientists, examining the various systems in the Outpost and studying the ice itself at this depth; archeologists, translating the various writings on the wall; and finally a strong military security presence.

Harry was sure that even during the height of the Alteran civilization that the place had never seen so many people in it at once.

"Amazing," said Theron, her eyes seeming to take in everything at once. Sheppard just looked confused. "And they're all going to be under my command?"

Harry merely tilted his head in acknowledgement. "We've brought the Expedition here so they can familiarize themselves with the Outpost's systems, it's the closest thing we have to anything truly Alteran. And it will prepare them and you for the City."

Daniel, clad in a rather stylish North Face arctic jacket, approached them with an excited bustle; he looked like the proverbial kid in the candy store, and had a gleam in his eyes.

"Harry."

"Daniel, hope that wasn't you firing off a rogue drone?"

"No, wasn't me. How did you manage to er…"

"Keep our asses from being blown out of the sky? The exceptional flying of Major John Sheppard," he gestured to the Major. "Oh, and this is General Katherine Theron."

"Ah, pleasure," grinned Daniel, lightly shaking the General's hand. "You wouldn't happen to need a chief archeologist…"

"Daniel," interrupted Harry mock sternly, "Jack nixed the idea, as did Hammond."

"Oh well, had to try," sighed Daniel severely. "Aiyana is through there."

Harry turned to Sheppard, "Be careful, and don't touch anything, you haven't received your briefing yet, Major. Understood?"

"Yes sir," nodded Sheppard.

Harry, Daniel and Theron walked off deeper into the Outpost.

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Major John Sheppard had been to every corner of the Earth, had seen all a manner of people, both good and bad. Usually he was the one fighting the latter. He had also seen every kind of man made structure on the planet – and was also involved occasionally in blowing them up.

But he had never even conceived that this could exist and survive under more than a mile of ice. The architecture was almost Roman – but not quite.

He passed a duo of scientists that was carrying the missile that had sought to kill him and two flag officers just half an hour ago. It didn't resemble a missile so much as it resembled a sea creature and there was no nozzles, no exhausts, it defied everything he knew a missile should be.

A very excited voice in what looked to be the central room of this strange ruin under the ice, rose over the din at that moment, and what it said instantly caught John's attention.

"The second I shut my eyes, I could _see _you see, I felt power I've never had before, I had it dancing across the sky... it was magical, it really was. They're lucky, I don't know where it came from I just tried to concentrate and the drone shut itself down."

The voice had a distinct and deep Scottish brogue, and John saw that the owner was standing next to an ornate marble chair mounted on slightly raised platform and was eagerly gesticulating the drone missile's course relative to his chopper to another scientist.

"So you were the one," accused John, walking up the Scot with what he hoped was his best 'intimidating' face – usually reserved for facing off bad guys.

"Me?" The Scot looked like a deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming car.

"You were the one that fired that thing at me." John narrowed his eyes at the Scot – who had a range of emotions cross his bubbly face, before it settled on earnest honesty.

"Look we're doing research. Working with technology that's light years beyond us and we make mistakes. I'm incredibly, incredibly sorry."

What could one say to that sort of apology? John felt his ire extinguished at the honesty he was sensing.

"Well, next time be a little more careful, okay?"

"That's what I said."

"What the heck was that thing anyway?" John asked curiously.

"You mean the drone?" John nodded. "The weapon the Alteran's built to defend this Outpost."

"The who?" John blinked in confusion. _Alterans?_

The Scot replied in astonishment, "You do have security clearance to be here?"

"Yeah, yeah, Commodore Potter just gave it to me."

"Then you don't even know about the Stargate," the Scot said, shaking his head now in disbelief.

John felt his irritation grow again, "The what?"

It was this moment that John would remember as when the big wide world no longer seemed that big, and that all its problems were rather small – it was both humbling and terrifying.

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Harry, Apollonia, Hermione, Aiyana, Daniel and Dr McKay (now assigned to the Atlantis Expedition) was barely fifteen minutes into their tour of the Outpost with General Theron, when a wide eyed Dr Beckett came running up to them. "You've got to see this, Aiyana! Come look!"

They looked at each other for a moment and followed the Atlantis expedition's Chief Medical Practitioner, who led them back to the main Control Chair room – where lo and behold, Major John Sheppard was seated in the Chair with it _fully_ activated around him.

What were the odds of that? Whilst theoretically, any Terran could now get on the Control Chair and use it, the mental capacity to truly wield the full power of it was still rare. Most would require a lot of training before they would even be able to turn the thing on, let alone fire live drones.

"Who is this?" asked Aiyana levelly.

"John Sheppard," answered Harry shortly and turned to the man in question – who was seated dead still in the chair, as if any little movement would set off the drones in the silos below them. "I said don't touch anything."

"I, I, I just sat down," stammered Sheppard.

"Major, think about where we are in the Solar System," said McKay intently. Immediately above their heads a large hologram bloomed into existence, with slowly revolving planets and a star burning brightly.

"Did I do that?" asked Sheppard with a frown.

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General Theron, after an exhaustive few hours was finally introduced to her new command, and was walking Harry back to the elevator.

"So what do you think of them all?" asked Harry with a grin.

"Let me put it this way," said Theron heavily, "when you said you had assembled the best, I had no idea you went to this extent." She shook her head in near disbelief. "My new Chief Metaphysicist for instance, she's the co-founder of the Delphi Academies, attained two Doctorates in the time it took me to get my first degree way back when."

"Don't tell me you're intimidated by Hermione?" Harry frowned.

"Of course not," said Theron stoically. "I'm their leader; I have to the set the example to follow. Setting that, with such a collection of geniuses under one roof though, will be a distinct challenge."

"You're up to it, General, hence why the STO selected you."

"Based on your and General Hammond's recommendation," she said pointedly.

"You caught my eye," said Harry simply. "And the work you did at A51 spoke for itself." That work of course, was the recent improvement in Naquadah Matrix Fusion Reactor, which allowed the Mark 3 units powering _Apollo_ and _Odyssey _to be built. The Mark 3 allowed for an almost two hundred percent improvement in Hyperspace speed, more powerful shields, faster charge times for weapons and increased power in said weapons. Theron had figured out a way past the design flaw in the Mark 3, which in simulations would lead to a cascading overload, and probably wipe a sizable portion of the US off the map, should the reactor ever be powered up.

"Yes well," she acceded to the implied praise and stopped at the elevator. "I wanted to ask you if you could perhaps have a word with Sheppard."

"Why?"

"From what I saw, he controlled that Chair as if it was an extension of his hand, it comes naturally to him," Theron said. "He did in a moment what others have to do with concentration and training, he would definitely be an asset in any Alteran environment and as such will be valuable to the Expedition."

"You mean you asked and he turned you down?" Harry asked incredulously.

"Not turned down, he said he needed some time to think about it."

"You could have just ordered him?" Harry remarked cheekily. "He's under STO jurisdiction now that he's been briefed."

"I don't want anyone under my command who doesn't want to be there," retorted Theron.

"All right, I'll see what I can do to encourage his decision."

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Harry was back in the co-pilot seat of the chopper and watched as Sheppard performed the pre-flight. He felt a bit irritated that he had to travel in the blasted thing again. But then, as Theron said, Sheppard would be a definite asset to the Expedition.

"Are you seriously considering not going?" said Harry, deciding that being blunt would be the best approach here.

"All due respect, Sir, we were just attacked by an alien missile. Then I found out that I can control said alien technology because, well, I'm partially an alien myself, heck, we all are in a distant fashion. Then there's this Stargate thing, and these expeditions to other Galaxies."

"You know this isn't about you Sheppard," said Harry pointedly. "It's much bigger than that."

"Right now, at this very second, whether I decide to go on this mission or not seems to be about me." The Chopper's engines started up and the rotors began to slowly rotate. Sheppard placed his earphones on, forcing Harry to do the same.

"Let me ask you something," Harry continued, "why did you become a pilot?"

"I think people who don't want to fly are crazy."

"And I think people who wouldn't want to go out there, through the Stargate, are equally as bloody idiotic," Harry barbed. "If you can't give me a yes, by the time we reach McMurdo…well, then you can stay and continue to freeze your arse off down here being a glorified ferry."

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**SGC, Earth**

The SGC had always been a place of bustling activity, which literally never slept, due to the fact that the rest of the Galaxy hardly observed Earth's diurnal cycle. But now a sort of organized chaos was present throughout the corridors. The Atlantis Expedition was about to leave.

The Expedition members were quite distinctive. Since they were walking into the pure unknown of another Galaxy, Harry had donated the use of chromesuits to every member. Of course, not all of them were enthused wearing such a 'revealing' piece of equipment, mostly due to the ingrained shame of body. Not that anyone had anything to be ashamed about; they had not only been selected on the basis of being a genius. There were also fitness requirements for members to meet, and anyone not measuring up had a few months ago, quickly been sent on a boot camp of sorts.

Also filling the halls were the equipment crates mounted on AG pads. They were bringing along a mile long list of things, catering to every eventuality that the top minds in the STO could think of and then some. However, there was only so much a person could carry, as such; the majority of the equipment for the Expedition was now on board the _Briseus_, which was hopefully, already in the vicinity of wherever Atlantis was.

Harry would initially be accompanying the Expedition, just in case any unforeseen problems arose with the city itself that Aiyana couldn't handle.

He grinned at the amount of languages he was hearing being spoken by the Expedition members. The SGC had mainly American personnel due to its location, but this was the second truly multinational STO command, the first being _Tranquillity_.

"I don't under ... Does anyone else here speak the language these guy's are speaking?" A young dark skinned Force Recon Marine, with the name FORD on his chromesuit's chest called to anyone in the din.

Harry grinned and walked past into the very crowded Gate Room. It was dominated by the one hundred and thirty four strong, STO SpecOps Force that was being assigned to the Expedition. They made for quite an intimidating sight in chromesuits and PR8 AW systems. Their commander was from the SAS, and if possible looked even more forbidding, like a lion among wolves.

At just under two meters tall, with a face that looked like it was just a few scars short of being a Mad-Eye Moody look a like. Colonel Henry MacTavish looked like he could eat barbells for breakfast, and his eyes shone with a frightful intelligence. The man could also boast numerous military successes against the Goa'uld – in one instance defeating a First Prime in hand to hand combat.

"Commodore," saluted MacTavish casually in acknowledgement of Harry's presence.

"Colonel, everything ready?"

"We're all squared away, Sir. Merely give the word."

Harry smiled and nodded, but his eyes caught an uncomfortable looking Major Sheppard passing them.

"Commodore," saluted Sheppard and continued his ambling walk.

"Gonna have trouble with that one," declared MacTavish. "He may be a Gulf and Afghani veteran, but he's completely green in off-world ops. Not to mention finding a spot for him to slot into one of my teams. Teamwork is everything in SpecOps."

"Then let him find people he can work with, and build a team with them," advised Harry.

"Aye," nodded MacTavish. "Just hope the blighter will follow orders. He had noble intentions in Afghanistan trying to save those three blokes, but that dinna count fer nothing if you're only going to get more good men killed in the process."

Aiyana and Dr McKay approached at this point. "Okay, we've got one of the ZPMs connected to the SGC grid," said McKay in satisfaction, rubbing his hands together. "We should be good to go."

General Theron entered the Gate Room and a sudden hush fell on everyone, even the scientists; clearly she had made her impression on both scientific and military spheres of the Expedition in the few months she had been in command. A way was cleared for her and she moved up the embarkation ramp to address her command.

She cut a beautiful figure in the chromesuit; with command red chrome strips ringing her shoulders, a single star on her lapel for her rank.

"We are about to try and make a connection," she began. "Thanks to the ZPM now installed in the SGC, we can take our time. But we will not amble through. We want maximum use out of the ZPMs. So if we are able to achieve a stable wormhole, we'll send in the MALP probe, check for viability and go. Everything in one shot."

"Every one of you accepted the offer for this mission and you represent numerous countries. You are the world's best and brightest and in light of the adventure we are about to embark on. You are also the bravest. I hope we will return having discovered a whole new realm for humanity to explore but as all of you know. There are no guarantees in the great unknown out there. I'd like to offer you all one last chance to withdraw your participation."

Harry looked around and not a soul moved or wavered.

Theron smiled in satisfaction, walking off the ramp and said to the Control room, "Dial the Gate!"

The Gate immediately sprang to life and the inner ring began spinning.

Harry followed Theron into the Control Room, where SG1, Generals Hammond and Thompson were observing the proceedings.

"Chevron Four encoded," declared Walter to the room.

"Nice," grinned Jack.

"Thank you," said Theron primly.

"Chevron Five encoded."

"Chevron Six encoded."

"Here we go," mumbled McKay, having walked in a few moments earlier.

The seventh Chevron…locked and the Gate's inner ring continued to spin to its final position.

"Chevron eight…is locked."

With the familiar unstable waterlike vortex of energy, the Gate erupted into life and settled into the stable vertical pool of the event horizon. The Gate room and the adjoining corridors filled with the Expedition members, erupted into spontaneous applause and cheers.

"Send the MALP," ordered Theron.

The Mk.2 MALP which now worked with directional Gravity systems, hovered itself up the ramp and disappeared into the event horizon.

After a few very long seconds, Walter reported, "Receiving Telemetry."

Harry stared at the video feed, and saw only pitch darkness.

"Lidar indicates a large room," said McKay, standing over Walter.

"Switching to Night Vision."

"It's structurally intact," declared Daniel in excitement, staring at the green tinted video feed of a large 'embarkation/reception hall' definitely constructed by the Alterans.

"Sensors state there's Oxygen, no measurable toxins. We have viable Life-support," reported McKay, nodding at Theron.

"General Theron, you have a go," said the Chairman of the STO.

"Thank you, Sir," Theron saluted and walked out, Harry following closely in her wake. Soon enough, everyone was formed up into the order with which they would enter the subspace path.

General Theron would be first, Aiyana, Harry, and MacTavish and some of his men hot on her heels. When the initial room and those immediately beyond were secured, the signal would be sent back for the main Expedition to enter. Hopefully, _Briseus_ would be already there waiting and they would be able to establish radio contact.

Theron stopped a step away from the event horizon, briefly touching the event horizon, this would in actuality be only her second trip through the Gate, the first being to the Alpha Site and her other journeys had been by ship. She let out a breath and stepped through, disappearing with a wet slurp.

Harry felt the surge of anticipation and happiness from Aiyana, he placed a hand on her shoulder and grinned at her, she smiled in pure joy in return and with that, they stepped through the event horizon.

She was coming home.

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_A/N: Aaah! How could I end it there? This chapter had to end at some point. No Dr Weir! Sorry folks, the impetus for her appointment was the change in political administrations, which is still a half a year away. Military!Atlantis? Yes, Theron is military, but the STO is erring on the side of caution, remember, they know that something kicked the Alterans out of Pegasus thanks to Harry._


	39. Chapter 39

_**Chapter Thirty-Nine – Rising**_

Harry Potter loved Stargate intergalactic subspace paths. Whilst stepping through a normal path within a Galaxy was near instantaneous, an intergalactic one of three million light years would take approximately nine seconds to travel through. Nine seconds of twisting and curving around stars, black holes, the void between galaxies, more stars, and finally in a flash of bright white, he was stepping into the near darkness of what would hopefully turn out to be Atlantis itself.

Theron was ahead of him and Aiyana, walking slowly forward scanning with her PR8 around the room, the night vision on her eye HUD glowing green. Harry led Aiyana away from the event horizon, as Colonel McTavish and his men appeared and began to fan out into the large hall.

Harry spared a glance behind him at the Stargate, and noticed its design was somewhat different. _Guess the Alterans upgraded the thing in their time here_. Gone was the rotating inner ring, it was now just one solidly constructed Stargate, where the inner ring should've been were segmented sections that could change star constellation coordinates seemingly at will, the mechanism - to use a crude comparison - was 'digital' compared to the 'analogue' of the Milky Way Gate system. The Chevrons glowed a cool blue instead of orange, but that was merely an aesthetic choice.

He turned back and watched as the hall seemingly lit itself up as McTavish's men walked up the main staircase directly facing the Stargate. Alteran characters were everywhere, the architecture full of geometric relationships and shapes, distinctive of the Alterans. The room was definitely big enough to accommodate MEVs, he could also spot graviton motion arrestors built into the sides of the main staircase, doubling as more lights. Each step of the staircase also had Alteran characters on it – in yet another dialect of Ancient.

The lights now illuminated the room fully, allowing him to see darkened tinted glass windows with yet more geometric motif. Up the stairs to the right, there seemed to be a main control area, and walking through that across a small bridge would get to the 'Commanders' office, which had also a nice view of the entire arrival hall. To the left of the stairs, was an open segmented doorway, which McTavish was now securing…a meeting room.

More security troops had been pouring in, and separating into their respective teams, continuing to secure the area.

Harry turned to Aiyana, and saw her absolutely basking in the place. A light had entered her eyes that he had never seen before.

"Atlantis," she breathed deeply.

"This is it?" he asked, mostly for confirmation.

"Yes, the decorative elements have changed, but the layout is still the same as I remember."

"Good, shall we see how Atlantis has fared after all this time?"

Aiyana nodded and examining the patterns on the floor, walked forward and came to a stop, her hand held out in front of her. Abruptly, out of the floor, a small door opened and a mental interface podium shot up and came to a stop directly under her hand. Her hand settled on it and it immediately lit up with a blue glow, her eyes closed as her mind interfaced with the city.

She didn't spend a few seconds doing this when abruptly she stepped back, the podium disappeared into the floor again. She tapped on her ear, initiating com with everyone, and even back to the SGC.

"This is Aiyana to all security teams, stop what you are doing and fall back to the Gate Room, immediately. The city's power reserves are extremely low, and it's sitting on the floor of an ocean. The force field keeping the water out is at barely sustainable levels…our mere presence is taxing what little power is left."

There was a pause as everyone absorbed that.

"_Understood, Aiyana,_" General Theron's voice over the com. "_You heard her, McTavish, get your people back._"

"_Aye, General_."

"In the meantime, Harry and I will rush to the main power room and install the ZPMs into the city."

"This is Potter to SGC," Harry tapped his own earpiece. "Hold the main expedition team and keep the wormhole open until we give the go ahead."

"_Understood, Commodore, we've been listening_," assured Hammond from three million light years away.

"Come on," said Aiyana, grabbing Harry's hand and rushing over to a doorway below the Commander's office, it opened at their approach and they burst through into a hallway, passing retreating soldiers as they went. The duo turned down a staircase, taking steps three at a time, and went down nearly five levels before Aiyana shook her head.

"We'll need to risk using a Transport station, it'll take too long to get to the base of this tower otherwise."

Aiyana rushed towards a door that had slight tinted window slits built into it. It opened at their approach, and a panel on the other side opened to show what Harry assumed to be an overhead diagram of the city with various dots lit up all over it. Atlantis reminded him somewhat of a snowflake, in terms of overall design.

The moment the door of the closet sized room closed, Aiyana, touched a point on the city diagram and there was a bright flash for a moment, before the door opened again, and the view beyond had changed, to another entirely different corridor with dark brown, almost black panelling. It lit up for them as they ran, seemingly highlighting the best route towards the central power room.

Aiyana turned a corner and rushed towards a seemingly non-descript room, it hardly screamed 'I'm important', or had any warnings, it looked…utterly normal, in relative terms of course. Harry followed her into an octagonal sided room; dominating it in the centre was a triangular podium that rose up to waist height, surrounded by consoles that seemed to rely entirely on mental interface; it looked somewhat like an organ, with two levels of crystal trays with various touchpad surfaces inscribed into it, on the lowest level, were seemingly more interface surfaces and buttons, all inscribed in Alteran. Along one wall there was a thin screen however, showing a never ending blue haze with Alteran characters swirling through it in every direction. Alongside some of the walls were diagnostic screens showing the current status of the city's power systems.

Aiyana put down her backpack and rushed over to one of the consoles, which lit up under her touch, and she began tapping furiously into it – and it began making small beeps and squeaks as she went.

"Get out the ZPMs so long."

Harry nodded and zipped open the bag, pulling out the shock proof container holding the precious power sources. He put it down and opened it, pulling one of the ZPMs out carefully and holding it, ready for her word to insert the module. He had the time to examine the upper portion of the triangular podium and saw three ZPMs nestled into slots.

"Okay," nodded Aiyana. "Two ZPMs are completely drained, the third is almost drained as well, and we barely have twenty minutes of power left in it, thanks to our arrival. I'm going to raise one of the drained modules, the moment it's out, pull and switch."

There was slight hum and a dead ZPM rose out of the podium. It came to a stop and Harry carefully pulled it out of its receptacle, and immediately lined up the fresh one according to the shape of the slot, once he was sure he simply guided it half in and abruptly felt the thing snagged from his hand as the internal mechanisms pulled in the module, it settled fully in the podium and lit up with a yellow active colour.

"Good, power flow is stable; the force field has stabilized…" Aiyana reported. She continued to tap at the console. "Now for the next one…"

Again, a dead ZPM rose out of the podium, again Harry swapped the old one for the new.

The second ZPM settled into the podium fully and lit up.

"Power levels rising…the city is at seventy two percent of rated power," grinned Aiyana.

"Excellent," Harry shared the grin and tapped his com. "Potter to all Expedition members and the SGC, the city is powered up…and imminent danger of drowning has been averted. The main Expedition can begin to come through and the security teams can resume their search."

"_Understood,_" came the chorus across the link.

"Aiyana to General Theron, I've noticed that there are some flooded sections of the city, especially on the outer sections. I'm going to raise the city's main shield to push the water away from us completely and begin draining it out. In the meantime, I advise you to keep the security teams within the building we are currently in."

"_Very well, I'll pass that down_."

"Harry, why don't you go outside, I'm sure you'll enjoy the view of this," Aiyana nodded at him.

"You sure?" he frowned.

"I've seen this many times before," she smiled at him with a twinkle in her eyes.

Harry acknowledged with slight bow of his head and vanished with a slight displacement of air, filling in the void his body had once occupied.

"Show off," she muttered.

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Harry stood a few feet away from the base of the Atlantis Stargate, General Theron, Major Sheppard and Dr Mckay around him looking at the event horizon.

"SGC, Atlantis base offers greetings from the Pegasus Galaxy, we have made contact with _Briseus_, she is in orbit around the planet Atlantis is landed on and can look after us now, and you may cut power to the gate."

"_Understood_, _good luck Atlantis_," said Hammond's voice over the com.

However, the SGC clearly wanted to wish them more than a simple good luck, as a large champagne bottle rolled through the event horizon. The subspace path abruptly shut down and the new blue and naquadah black coloured Stargate settled into idle mode. Theron stepped forward and picked up the bottle. It had a note reading _'May God be with you in all the strange and amazing places you must walk, Bon Voyage, General Thompson_.'

"Thoughtful of him," smiled Theron.

At that moment, a musical hum chimed through air of the city, there was a slight flash outside the windows as the ocean water, which had been creating a deep blue aquarium vista through them, abruptly vanished as the water was visibly pushed back by a gigantic shield. It was over in barely three seconds.

They rushed up to the windows behind the Stargate and could now finally see the true extent of the city. They were clearly in the tallest and central tower of the snowflake shaped city, numerous others crowded around it, but never came close to its height. Each arm of the snowflake held yet more tall building clusters, the architecture was breathtaking. Normally, the Alteran's went more for functionality than aesthetics, here it seems, with their capital city, they felt the need to impress. The architectural skill was nothing short of lightyears beyond what Earth was capable of. He could just imagine the structural engineers in the Expedition salivating at the prospect of learning those building methods.

The buildings curved, and sloped organically at some points, merging into yet more geometric shapes, in a way that just seemed 'natural' and not awkward at all - whilst the numerous windows gleamed in the light emitted by the glowing umbrella of the city shield that hovered now protectively over Atlantis.

"That is impressive, isn't it?" McKay looked deeply impressed and amazed.

The moment was broken when Dr Beckett's voice intruded on it.

"_Beckett to General Theron, I've found something you all, including Aiyana should definitely see_."

"We have a lot to see, Doctor, can it wait?" Theron tapped her earpiece.

"_No, not if what the Alteran Hologram Lady is telling me is true, I'm ten levels down from ye_."

"Very well, we'll be there in a few minutes," Theron turned off her link. "Down to business then."

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They met up with Beckett in what turned out to be Atlantis' Hologram Room. Harry couldn't help but feel a slight sense of déjà vu, his own design for the Hologram rooms on board the _Achilles_ and _Briseus_, was also octagonal, in fact, except for the differing surface décor it was an almost match.

He shrugged it off, _Think about it later_.

Aiyana joined them as well as they reached the room and its doors split open, much like the ones in the conference room in the arrival hall. Beckett stood at the interface podium, with it lit under his touch, and projected in front of them all was a medium height Alteran woman wearing an intricate white dress. Her face was vital and beautiful, and she had a distinct intelligence that seemed to radiate from her like a palpable aura.

The Alteran woman was in mid recitation – clearly Dr Beckett had accessed the last log entry recorded by the Alterans before abandoning the city. She was speaking in modern English too; the user-friendly and very intelligent system had interfaced with the language centres of the Doctor's brain to make it intelligible to him.

"…_in the hope of spreading new life in a galaxy where their appeared to be none. Soon the new life grew, prospered. Here_…"

"The recording loops, this is my second time through…" smiled Carson.

"What have we missed?" asked Theron.

"Not much."

"…_exchange of knowledge and friendship_," continued the Alteran woman. A star map of the Pegasus Galaxy appeared above her head, with every world terraformed, colonized or seeded with life by the Alterans marked in blue. They had managed _a lot _in five million years. "_In time a thousand worlds bore the fruit of life in this form. Then one day our people stepped foot on a dark world where a terrible enemy slept. Never before had we encountered beings with powers that rivalled our own. In our over confidence, we weren't prepared and outnumbered. The enemy fed upon defenceless human worlds like a great scourge until finally only Atlantis remained. This city's great shield was powerful enough to withstand their terrible weapons but here we were besieged for many years. In an effort to save the last of our kind we submerged our great city into the ocean. The Atlantis Stargate was the one and only link back to Earth from this Galaxy, and those who remained used it to return to that world that was once home. There the last survivors of Atlantis lived out the remainder of their lives. This city was left to slumber, in the hope that our kind would one day return."_

Beckett stepped down and the hologram vanished.

"So the story of Atlantis is true," mused McKay, "a great city that sank in the ocean."

"It just didn't happen on Earth," agreed Beckett.

"Well, the ancient Greeks must have heard it from one of the surviving Alterans."

"I'm more worried about the fact that the Alterans got their arses kicked forcibly back to the Milky Way," Harry was grim. "I always assumed it was some natural calamity that caused their return, not a more powerful enemy."

He strode over the interface podium and placed his hand on it. Again it lit. This time a different Alteran woman appeared. Her dress was simpler, her black hair longer and slightly scruffier, and she appeared older than the first Alteran lady to appear.

"It seems Dr Beckett accessed the last log of Atlantis, that woman was an Alteran Council member," explained Harry, interpreting what he saw in his mind's eye of the cyberspace of Atlantis' database. "She should be of more help, her name is Ganos Lal. Essentially, the 'Minister of Education' of the Alterans here in Atlantis."

"_Hello_," said the Lal hologram, her arms folded regally into a white cardigan of sorts. "_You may enter your query verbally or by manual input in the console in front of you. But note for future sessions, that manual input is required for most system interaction_." Her tone was distinctly patronizing.

"Hello, who is the 'enemy' that the Council member refers to in the last official log of the city?"

"_She is referring to the Unstantia Ereptor, or their more colloquial name in your tongue – Wraith_," the Lal hologram said.

"What is the Wraith?" asked Theron intently.

The Lal hologram abruptly took a step to the left and next to her appeared a tall being with two arms, two legs…a general human shape, except for the fact that it had long pure white hair, milky white skin with a hint of green, cat-like eyes, hands that had clawish like nails and a mouth of extremely sharp clustered teeth. The Wraith had an expression on its ugly face that had it perpetually snarling. It wore dark black leathers with a long coat, heavy boots and some sort of gauntlet that had a technological nature to it.

"_This is a typical exemplar of a Wraith; this specific form is known as a Command drone._"

The Wraith hologram vanished to be replaced by another. This Wraith's face was entirely covered with a sort of organic HUD mask, it was taller and bulkier than the previous one, and wore a form of armour.

"_This is the Wraith warrior drone, the most numerous type in existence_," explained Lal.

The hologram was again replaced, but this time a distinctly female shaped Wraith appeared dressed in a simple white dress, but a form of clawed gauntlet was around her right arm and hand.

"_This is the Wraith Queen, their exact number is unknown, but they serve as the leader of a hive ship, however, depending on their individual power, a single Queen can have many hives under her domain_."

The Queen vanished and Lal stepped back into the central position, expectantly waiting for the next question. Harry glanced to Aiyana who looked distinctly worried.

"The Alteran name for the Wraith," she said addressing the hologram, "loosely translated it means Essence Stealer, what is meant by that name?"

"_A more correct translation would be Essence Feeder_," countered Lal. "_The Wraith sustains themselves by forcefully draining all the mitochondrial energy, vital nutrients, and blood of any living being."_

"You've got to be kidding me?" Mckay was astonished. "You're telling us this entire Galaxy is dominated by Space _vampires_?"

"_Terran vampires leave their victims alive and only drain blood, it is not life threatening, the Wraith feeding process when completed results in death_…" stated Lal.

"How can she know tha'?" asked a baffled Beckett.

"She's getting that from me, since my mind is interfaced with it," Harry said in an obvious tone.

"…_at the time Atlantis was abandoned, it was estimated that the Wraith had one hundred and ten strategically located worlds under their control, and maintained a fleet of sixty nine hive ships and seven hundred and ninety Cruisers. So therefore yes, the Galaxy is well under their control_."

A Galaxy map appeared overhead, showing the entire thing highlighted in an angry red.

"All right, that's enough Commodore," Theron held her hands up to halt the proceedings. Harry nodded and stepped down, the device deactivated. "Aiyana, you and Harry dive into the Alteran database and give me a comprehensive summary on the Wraith, from how the Ancients got their butts kicked to what the defensive capabilities of Wraith ships have, their tactics…everything."

"Keeping in mind, General, that the database was last updated ten thousand years ago," Aiyana noted.

"I understand that, but old information is better than nothing at all," said Theron. "Commodore, get on the com to the _Briseus_, tell them to Cloak themselves immediately. We can't afford to draw the attention of the Wraith now of all times."

"Understood," nodded Harry, "should we tell them to start beaming down their supplies and personnel as well?"

"Sit tight, let me just get my bearings on this Wraith issue, everyone dismissed."

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They had reconvened four hours later in the conference room off the arrival hall, which had been in fact that very spot that the old Alteran Council had sat. The conference table was in a U-shape with everyone on an even plane and able to see each other clearly. The table itself was made of a composites and solid trinium, coloured in blues and greens.

The entire top echelon of Atlantis was there; Theron, McTavish, Aiyana, McKay, and Beckett. Hermione had beamed down and been brought up to speed, and Apollonia was watching through a remote link that had been established up to the _Briseus_.

Harry stood near one end of the table and began to outline what they had already learned about the Wraith through the Lal hologram. He had his palm down on one of the transparent surfaces of the conference table – which was actually a mental interface station for anyone delivering a presentation.

"The Wraith feed on humans by means of a specialized organ on their right hand," he began.

A large hologram of a clawed five fingered hand appeared in the middle of the room, with an odd slit on its palm.

"They attach it to the chest of their victim and clamp down, and to put it simply, begin to suck the life right out of the body. The science behind the process isn't all that clear in the Alteran database, they didn't exactly have live Wraith on hand to experiment on, nor was they willing to have one suck the life out of a human in controlled circumstances," Harry's tone was dry.

"What about the soul?" asked Hermione gravely. Mckay snorted, but was quickly glared down by Harry and Theron.

"No," Harry shook his head knowing what she was thinking. "This process is purely physical, the Wraith have no overt metaphysical powers – except for a hive telepathy that allows them to communicate when they are within a certain proximity to each other."

"What ca' we do about protectin' ourselves from this, shoul' we God forbid, end up in a position of being fed on by a Wraith?" MacTavish grimly enquired.

"The only advice I have at that point is to will your chromesuit closed so it can't latch on your head, and fight for your life. The feeding organ of the Wraith has no teeth and even if it did, it would not be able to penetrate a suit."

"I'm bloody well sleepin' with the thin' from now on," muttered Beckett nervously.

"Thank you, Commodore," nodded Theron, looking thoughtful. "What can you tell us of the war between the Alterans and Wraith?"

"The exact catalyst for it is not in the database but after First Contact between them, the Alterans came under immediate attack. Initially the War looked to be a shoe in for the Alterans. Wraith ships were hardly a match in a one on one battle against an Alteran Cruiser – they have no shields, their ships are made of an organic metal of sorts that can regenerate given enough time, but they have incredibly powerful weapons."

"So what went wrong?" Aiyana said.

"From what I could gather, twenty years into the war the Alterans were on the brink of victory and grew overconfident, they sent their ships deeper and deeper into Wraith territory without proper backup. The war records list a few Alteran ships that go missing at this point, presumably captured, then barely a year later, the Wraith suddenly explode in numbers and the tide turns completely."

"Over the next hundred years the Alterans fought a losing battle, giving way in front of a numerically superior foe; no matter how many Cruisers or Hive ships they destroyed the Wraith simply kept on coming. There are mention of a number of projects near the end that the Alterans engaged in to solve the Wraith problem through science and ingenuity but as history attests to, they didn't work. Eventually, all that was left was this planet – _Lantea_ - and Atlantis, which was under siege. Here the Alterans made a last gasp final stand, using a network of defence satellites that ringed the planet. Again, the Wraith simply hurled themselves against the superior defences with no regards to themselves, overwhelming it until Atlantis itself came under fire. Finally, they submerged the city and after bringing back everyone they could, went through the Stargate back to Earth and set the city to slumber."

"Which brings us to today," sighed General Theron. "What can you tell us of Wraith ships?"

Harry willed a graphic diagram to appear of the primary ship the Wraith based themselves from.

"This is the Hive ship."

"Ugly lookin' thing," grunted MacTavish.

It had a mostly dark blue organic looking hull, wide in the rear, then tapering to a rounded point at the bow. Various metallic structures dotted out of certain sections and yellow propulsion emitters were mounted on the stern. But there was one thing that impressed the room about it.

"Two bloody kilometres in length!" gasped Beckett.

"Bear in mind that size isn't everything," warned Harry with a grin. "But you're correct to be worried Doctor, the amount of firepower this thing can bring to bear is staggering. Wraith weapons fire in the manner of the Goa'uld Ha'tak – a sphere of energy is projected out of their main cannons – but they don't use energized plasma. Instead, their weapon fires payloads of anti-baryons suspended in a containment field."

"You're kidding?" Mckay exclaimed, looking aghast.

"That was for benefit of those who know what that is, for those who don't – suffice it to say, that when the Wraith shoot, be somewhere else," Harry said intently. "The next ship and most numerous is the Wraith Cruiser."

The Hive ship was replaced by a much smaller four hundred meter length organic ship which also had a blue organic hull and metallic structures sticking out, but had only two pulse engine emitters jutting out of the stern. The design was overall, eerily like a Terran Destroyer in general shape.

"They act as escorts and scouts for the Hive ships, and carry the same weapon systems as the Hives, but obviously have less power. Also of interest is the fact that Wraith Hyperspace capability is limited due to the organic nature of their ships, the subspace radiation has a deleterious effect on their hulls and systems…therefore they can only use their Hyperdrives in jumps of eight hours, before they have to stop and allow the ship time to vent radiation and recover from exposure. Thankfully for us and the Milky Way, this means that the Wraith do not have Intergalatic travel capabilities – at least not within any reasonable time frame."

The Cruiser vanished to be replaced with a small fighter type craft, with a needle sharp nose tapering to a thicker and wider organic hull in the rear.

"This is the Wraith one-man fighter, code-named 'Dart'" Harry continued. "Their purpose is dual-fold. These are the ships sent down to planets to 'collect' humans forcibly, it has a solid state transporter beam which it emits from its belly to strafe the ground with, and anyone caught in the beam is instantly dematerialized and stored in the fighter's matter buffer. They then rematerialize their prey on Hives and Cruisers for feeding. As you can see from its dimensions, it can fit through a Stargate so these things can literally pop up anywhere there is a Gate with little warning. And the Alterans note as well that the Wraith have reverse-engineered remote DHDs on these things."

"Their second purpose is of course, combat. A Hive ship can carry hundreds of Darts and can flood space with the damn things. They have a fighter mounted version of the Anti-Baryon Cannon in the tip of the nose. How they will fair against our F302s is open for debate…but at a glance I would say that the Dart is more manoeuvrable, but very fragile. The shields on a F302 will give our pilots some staying power in a dogfight but we will have to run simulations on their performance against anti-Baryon based weapons."

"Now remember I said a Wraith ship has no shields, but with the amount of Darts they have, it's not really an issue. A Wraith ship will always keep a sizable amount of Darts around it, to perform point defence duties against missile weapons. If one our Terran Destroyers were to engage a Hive Ship we would not be able use AHMs effectively. We'd have to stick to using Particle beams only."

"We could always just beam AHMs close to their hull beyond the Darts and set them off on area detonation," suggested Mckay. "I mean it wouldn't be a sure one hit one kill, but the Hive ship would still sustain massive damage."

Harry frowned severely at Mckay for a moment then got a considering expression on his face, "That's…a good idea Mckay. Simple yet effective. It'll also make a huge dent in the amount of Darts that the Wraith ship has at its disposal." The scientist in question looked quite smug.

"Leaving gaps in the Dart defence where you can sneak an AHM through normally…boom!" Mckay clapped his hands together for effect.

"That is all well and good," Theron held her hands up to pause the enthusiasm, "but the fact of the matter is that we're now in the same position the Alterans were when the siege of Atlantis began. Sure, we could destroy numerous Wraith Hives and ships, but we only have the city, its personnel and one ship. Now, I don't like the fact that we've got an entire Galaxy of humans who have seemingly been reduced to being nothing more than cattle. But the bottom line is…we surface the city, explore this Galaxy and sooner or later we're going to encounter the Wraith."

"And ye can bet they'll figure out eventually where we're based," MacTavish said ominously. "And since A'lantis is the only way back to Earth – we canna let it fall into their hands."

"I still have to inspect Atlantis fully, but I'm sure if the City's Stardrive is still within safe operational guidelines, we could relocate to another world 'off the beaten path' so to speak – if we saw that another siege was inevitable," Aiyana stated helpfully.

"We must also weigh the benefits to Earth and Humanity as a whole, General," Harry was earnest. "Yes, we risk inviting another bad guy to the party, when we're still fighting against the Goa'uld back home, but what if the solution to that problem is _here_, among the wealth of the _entire_ Alteran knowledge base…literally at our fingertips or somewhere out there in Pegasus."

Silence fell on the room as everyone absorbed that thought.

"My descendants didn't leave Atlantis with idle purpose on this ocean floor," Aiyana spoke up solemnly, yet strongly. "Using the Stardrive they could've opened a Hyperspace window intra-atmosphere to escape, but they did not. Why? You heard the Councillor, because they wanted their descendants…_you_," she pointed to the Terrans in the room. "To reclaim it when the time came and to make right a terrible wrong."

Theron looked pensive as she interlaced her fingers on the table.

"Looking at this decision from the point of view of a Terran, our course of action should be obvious, fix our ancestors' mistake. But there are so many other things to take into account…give me an hour."

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Harry sat behind one of the Consoles in Atlantis' Control room, familiarizing himself with the systems, Mckay was at one of the forward consoles at a level slightly below, whilst another Chief Scientist, a crazy haired, excitable Czech by the name of Doctor Radek Zelenka, was at another Console – oohing and aahing over the systems and then babbling in his native language under his breath, much to Mckay's annoyance.

Zelenka was a notable Physicist with more of a background in Astrophysics than Mckay – who focused more on Quantum and Mechanical spheres of the science.

Hermione was behind the furthermost Console, which housed the Alteran version of the SGC Dailing Computer. It had the thirty nine Stargate symbols native to the Pegasus Galaxy neatly arranged in a triangular formation, each working with an old fashioned 'composite' push button to engage a particular coordinate. In the centre of the triangle was a red button, which engaged a brilliant white Alteran Shield to appear over the mouth of the Stargate – to stop uninvited guests from entered the city. She was currently familiarizing herself with the Library of Gate addresses that were in the Database for Pegasus.

General Theron had ordered MacTavish and his troops to secure the central tower of Atlantis in the meantime, and erect man portable force field generators to seal off the tower from the rest of the city. The Expedition would live and use it as a base, from which to explore the rest of the city.

Aiyana was standing behind Harry, anxiously looking over his shoulder and occasionally explaining a system's function to make the process go smoother. She would then give a glance at the General's new Office, across the walkway bridge where Theron had sequestered herself.

"She could always bump the decision up to the STO Council," noted Mckay idly, staring at his laptop; which had been interfaced with the Console to render what it was telling him into understandable English. All expedition members had been required to learn the latest dialect of Alteran – but it didn't replace the fact that all of them had been schooled in English, and knew science in that language. Only Harry, Aiyana and Apollonia could truly work with the Consoles without an interface laptop.

"She was given Ambassadorial-level authority to make alliances with the potential new races we would encounter here, Mckay, and deal with those that were a threat to Humanity," retorted Harry in irritation. "She doesn't want to run to the Council with her first command level decision and then have them tell her what she was going to do anyway."

"The Goa'uld need humans to live in, the Wraith need humans to live on," said Zelenka musingly. "We're at war with the first for that very reason; the same outcome with the latter is inevitable. The only question in my mind is in what manner we are going to fight."

"You may be right," said Peter Grodin, an English structural engineer and general scientist from his own Console. "I for one would prefer not to be at war with anyone, but I'll bloody sure fight an interstellar vampire for my very existence."

Their eyes were immediately drawn to the walkway, General Theron – her command chromesuit glistening and reflecting the lighting of the Arrival Hall stood there – she stared at all of them in turn with a mask like neutral face, not giving them an inkling on her decision.

"I trust you can put me on citywide PA and to the _Briseus_?"

"No problem," nodded Hermione, and rolled her chair over to another unoccupied Console that controlled Atlantis' many and varied communication systems – the simplest being the PA, the most complex being a subspace com array that would even have the Asgard salivating over the opportunity to study it. Hermione fingered a few of the crystal pads, and there was a crackling sound throughout the Arrival Hall, the Central Tower and the crowded _Briseus_ – still waiting to deliver her supplies and passengers.

"This is General Theron, by now, your department heads and commanding officers have briefed you all on the new situation we face here. We came here hoping for a peaceful new frontier to explore, but it is I'm afraid, not to be. So the question is, now what? The Wraith was the undoing of the Alterans, if they failed, then how can we succeed? To that I answer, we learn from their mistakes and push forward. Columbus did not turn his ship around when he caught sight of the unknown Americas and its wilderness and perils, so why should we? As far as I'm concerned, we're one up on Columbus, he didn't have a database on the Americas. We are explorers, but now we will be soldiers too.

"How then will we fight the Wraith? The answer; stealth and guerrilla warfare, we will not allow them to know who we are, we will be like ghosts – attacking without warning with surgical precision at key Wraith facilities, outposts and ships and then vanishing. We will be the spear directly into their heart."

"Commodore Potter, Aiyana," she turned to them. "As Governor General of Atlantis, in my first official act, I order the city to be raised off the ocean floor. We are freeing the people of this Galaxy. All personnel on Atlantis, brace yourself."

Theron made a slashing gesture and Hermione cut the link.

"Proceed Commodore."

"Understood," said Harry, feeling a deep satisfaction…_it certainly seems_ _we've chosen the right leader_. His hands, with Aiyana's help, began dancing on the main navigational controls of the city. Together they released the city's graviton anchors, engaged the massive inertial dampeners which reduced the city's mass to near zero, and applied a small burst of power from the stardrive to get the city rising.

Despite all this, the ocean currents combined with the hum of the stardrive operating in the water environment caused the equivalent of a four point zero 'cityquake' on the Richter scale; consoles rattled, expedition members had to hold onto walls to steady themselves.

"Six hundred feet and rising!" reported Harry, steadying himself on the side of the console, but continuing to attempt to compensate for the shaking by firing thrusters.

Finally, after fifteen seconds of ascent, looking through the windows, they could see the water suddenly part from the shield, as the central tower saw daylight again for the first time in ten thousand years. The ocean continued to recede around the city shield until finally the ocean had reached the nominal level at about a hundred meters off the edge of the piers.

"Engaging buoyancy systems. Inertial dampening system powering down. Stardrive offline."

The city suddenly sank about fifty meters instantly, but the buoyancy systems kicked in before it go further and it bounced back up, then down again…twice it did this, releasing the brief momentum it had gathered into the ocean, in the form of a displacement waves radiating out from the city in all directions.

"We're stable and on the surface, General," reported Aiyana.

"Lower the Shield."

A musical hum resonated as the energy umbrella protecting the city vanished.

"Good, tell the _Briseus_ that they can begin transport. It's time we make ourselves at home."

Two days passed, filled with near constant activity, supplies were beamed down, then storage space had to be found for it – which of course, required that MacTavish and his men find and secure that space first. Then there was the chore of finding living space for everyone. Atlantis would in the end now house over one thousand two hundred Terrans, and not all of them could be fitted into the central tower; since it was dedicated to Stargate operations and city control, so they'd had to expand into the neighbouring towers for everyone to fit.

Thanks to the city schematics in the Alteran database, almost every member of the Expedition had found the sections of the city dedicated to their specific academic field and promptly moved in.

Dr Beckett was in glee over the Atlantis Infirmary, situated a level below 'Stargate Operations.' Though there was already Alteran medical equipment that was light years beyond most of his gear, he quickly figured out how to combine the uses of both to best effect.

With the help of Aiyana, the scientists were shown to various multipurpose labs in the central towers of the city. The engineers settled into a building that housed some of the city's fabricating facilities – most of which was Matter-Energy based. Atlantis didn't have anything that resembled a military barracks, but MacTavish and his men quickly appropriated six lower floors of the central tower and set up an Armoury complete with a gymnasium and firing range.

The most interesting discovery had been the levels above the Stargate. It housed an area encompassing three levels that held twenty five MEVs parked neatly on docking slots arranged in a circular formation. Those among the military personnel with flight experience, including Major Sheppard, had stumbled upon an MEV that had an addition to it. In the rear passenger compartment was a device hooked in the small ships' systems. It was vaguely circular and about three feet in length with an odd grey beige colour.

"Thought I better call you both to check it out before I sit down at the Jumper controls," said Sheppard.

"Jumper?" asked Harry with a raised eyebrow, poising his scanner over the device.

"Yeah Sir, Puddle Jumper, it's my nickname for these little beauties," Sheppard patted the inner hull of the ship mock-affectionately.

"I see, well, it has a certain…ease of pronunciation to it, more than MEV," conceded Harry distractedly, staring at the readings he was getting from the device.

"Personally, I think there's nothing wrong with calling it simply a 'Gateship'," said Mckay astutely, also staring at his own scanner. "Is that a… no way, that's…that's _unbelievable_!"

"What?" Sheppard said in alarm.

"My scanner says the same thing," said Harry with forced nonchalance and showed it Mckay who abruptly grabbed it and compared the two. He stared warily at the device and placed a palm on it and carefully extended his senses…"Holy shit!" he snapped and pulled away as if his hand was burned.

"What?"

"You can be very glad you didn't sit at the controls of this thing Major," groused Mckay, shaking his head. "Crazy…utterly mad…"

"Major, there is a small artificial singularity inside this thing – a black hole, to put it more simply," explained Harry. "This device is made to contain it, but also to manipulate it by changing quantum field densities to affect local changes in the space time continuum."

"Uhmm, what does that mean? I got the black hole part but…" Sheppard asked, slightly baffled and alarmed.

"He's saying this 'Jumper' is essentially a Time Machine, Major," frowned Mckay.

"Cool. But wouldn't the person using it be in danger of causing that paradox thing from _Back to the Future_."

"Don't even get me started on that movie," Mckay held his hands up, disgust written on his features.

"The simple answer is yes, Major," grinned Harry in amusement. "But you wouldn't fade into nothingness like Marty McFly. You'd simply continue existing but in a different Universe, split off from the old one you remember, or get stuck in a Causality Loop like SG1 did a few years ago."

"Hmmm, well despite that failure, it seems the Alterans finally did master Time Travel," Mckay tapped a few buttons on his scanner. "I wonder why they didn't make use of it to fight the Wraith?"

"Too many variables to calculate," answered Harry thoughtfully – thinking back to his own time travel experience – and what the mysterious future Terran had told him of how they had side-stepped the laws of causality. "This method of Time Travel is too 'invasive', the tiniest little change causes ripple effects beyond your ability to compensate and factor in, something like interfering in a chaotic war."

"So are we saying we can never use it?" asked Sheppard slightly disappointed.

"No, not at all, Major," Harry replied, going over the possibilities in his mind. "We'd just have to be extremely careful about it. In the meantime, I'm declaring this Jumper off-limits to everyone. I'm going to make a personal report to General Theron about it, so you can relax, Mckay."

He shooed both men out of the ship and linked mentally with the computer, willing it to shut the rear ramp. Next he pointed his palm to the ship and abruptly the entire thing was briefly distorted as he altered its surrounding space and a multi-effect spatial ward appeared over it. It would alter him the moment someone tried to breach the field and give anyone enough of a jolt to render them unconscious the moment it was touched.

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Harry had temporarily appropriated a decently sized sixty square meter 'apartment' only ten floors below Operations. Luckily, it seemed the Alterans knew how to build a bed to last, as all that had been required was a thorough dusting of the mattress. Of course, Hermione and Apollonia entered after their own exhausting days and appropriated their positions on either side of him as he slept.

His sleep was interrupted at four in the morning – Earth time; they still hadn't gotten around to adjusting everyone to the local time on Lantea. Harry gave a glance out of the window and saw that it was midday. Grumbling he untangled himself carefully from his wives and padded over to the desk that held his com earpiece, which had been steadily chirping for his attention. He glanced over at the bed and chuckled as he saw both women moan in irritation at the noise and sudden cold his absence produced.

He placed his earpiece in. "Potter here."

"_Sorry to interrupt your sleep Commodore_," the voice of Peter Grodin said.

"That's all right, I only had another hour to go anyway, is something the matter?"

"_We've picked up an emergency beacon on an Alteran subspace frequency, General Theron is calling for a briefing in thirty minutes_."

"Understood, I'll be there." He cut the link with a tap to the earpiece and strode over and abruptly pulled the covers off both women.

"Hey!" "That was not amusing, husband."

**Conference Room, Stargate Ops, Atlantis**

A holoscreen hovered in midair for all in attendance to see. It showed a starfield map and a blinking dot, with Alteran script attached in a caption next to it.

"What is it?" asked General Theron.

"That," Mckay was standing and doing the presentation "is an Alteran Hippoforalkus Class Cruiser named 'Aurora'. With the ZPMs active, Aiyana and I have been reactivating dormant systems. We stumbled across this one recently – it tracks in real-time the location of every Alteran warship in the Galaxy, most likely used during the Wraith war."

"That'll certainly be a boost to Atlantis' defence capability, if it can be salvaged and retrieved," Harry stated.

"I cross-checked the Aurora's last mission on the war logs," Aiyana continued. "They were on a reconnaissance mission, but curiously that is all the logs say."

"Their mission was classified?" Theron looked much more interested now.

"That is the only conclusion we can draw from the omission of details in the logs, it was a common security measure amongst us, even back in my time. Only the Alteran Council would've been aware of the true nature of the mission."

"It's on the edge of the Pegasus Galaxy, and no Stargates are nearby for the MEVs," noted Apollonia, staring at the star map. "We would need the _Briseus_ to go there."

"Colonel," Theron turned to MacTavish, who nodded.

"I'll assign Atlantis teams one and two; along with myself should the proverbial hit the fan."

"Good, I want you to take along Major Sheppard as well."

"Understood," nodded MacTavish, but didn't look happy. "Begging you're pardon ma'am…"

"I understand your reluctance with him, Colonel," Theron interrupted gently but nevertheless with supreme command in her tone. "The Commodore and Apollonia will not be with us for long, meaning that Major Sheppard needs to fill their shoes. Aiyana is only one person, after all."

"Are there any further questions?"

Silence.

"Make it happen. Dismissed."

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**Interstellar space, Outer Spiral arm of Pegasus Galaxy **

The huge saucer shaped _Briseus_ burst out of a hyperspace window and settled into a cruise as it flared its sublight engines on a direct course for the beacon.

"The signal is bearing a few light seconds distant," reported Apollonia from her seat in the Command chair on the Bridge. A section of the omniview bridge highlighted itself and indicated the relative direction.

Harry watched in amusement as Sheppard looked slightly disconcerted by the fact that to his senses it felt as if they were standing in the middle of space. The Major was standing awkwardly in full chromesuit and PR8 battle gear with the other nine Spec Ops men.

"We are in visual range," declared Apollonia.

A huge ship came into view, a holoscreen appeared and bracketed it and zoomed in.

"That's one ship that has seen better days," remarked Mckay wryly.

And he was not wrong. The Hippoforalkus class vessel was barely recognizable as being of that class; whole sections were exposed to space, hull was missing, the scorching of battle damage was everywhere. It was amazing that the thing was still in one relative piece.

"Well, there goes the salvaging option," Harry said with regret.

"I wouldn't be so sure, husband," mused Apollonia, another holoscreen blossomed into existence to show a lifesign scan. "I'm reading five hundred and fifty very faint life signs all over the superstructure, with extremely low metabolic rates indicative of stasis."

"Are ye sayin' we've got ourselves a bunch of Alteran's on ice here?" MacTavish said in astonishment.

"It seems that way," Harry stared at the holoscreen. "The Hippoforalkus class I know didn't have stasis pods, this one was obviously modified. Probably because she's only got interstellar hyperdrive and built for war, not exactly a speedy thing. It would've taken them months to get back to Atlantis." He turned to MacTavish. "Alright, there's no life support over there, so we're gonna have to go vacuum on the chromesuits."

"Off we go, lads," nodded the Colonel and they headed off the bridge with Harry following.

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Harry, Mckay, Sheppard, MacTavish and his men appeared on the Bridge deck of the Aurora with a flash of light. Their chromesuits were fully extended up to their necks and the conforming helmet was now tinted a pure reflective silver – anyone looking would not see twelve Terrans, but rather might think they were looking at agile two armed two legged 'advanced alien' beings.

It was one of the strategies of misdirection Theron had come up with to throw off the Wraith into who was attacking them when they eventually made contact with them in person; and since they could never be sure of _when_, all offworld teams would adopt it. If they had to interact with the local human population, the helmet would overlay a holographic 'mask' that would give the vague appearance of a soft alien face with dark purple skin, glowing eyes and nose; this due to the fact that it was noted in the Alteran database that the Wraith had human 'supporters and worshippers' – who would trade their lives in exchange for service.

The boarding team had PR8s ready and raised; their enhanced vision and the chromesuit's sensors easily penetrating the darkness, and showed a corridor of clearly Alteran architecture.

"Should be just outside the Bridge," Harry walked up to a large sealed door. He gave a gesture with his hand, and it strained open, to reveal to them a scene of utter devastation – the expansive control centre was open to space, consoles were blackened and scorched with fires long gone out, and various debris were floating in the zero g environment. "Okay, nothing to see there, Colonel, make a visual sweep of the ship, our sensors are advanced but it can't replace the Mark 1 Eyeball. Also check the ship's armoury."

"Understood Commodore, Alpha 1 head aft, Alpha 2 fore, Sheppard ye're with me."

With the soldiers off to do their thing, Harry and Mckay walked over to the nearest stasis pods in view. Mckay materialized his scanner and began to take readings.

"These capsules have extensive shielding, probably why their readings came over as faint as they were," said the Canadian scientist. Harry wiped the frost away from the circular capsule jutting out of the wall, to reveal a very old looking Alteran in what seemed to be a Captain's uniform of sorts or at least a very high ranking officer.

"Ten thousand years in stasis," said Harry shaking his head. "We couldn't revive them normally, they'd die instantly."

"You're right, their bodies are moribund," said Mckay looking at his scanner. "Huh… I'm reading active cortical signals."

"You mean their minds are active?"

"Definitely, the pods are equipped with a neural interface. It's indicating definite brain activity, as though they were perfectly conscious. If all of these pods are interconnected, it's highly possible these people are, in fact, communicating with each other."

"For all of ten thousand years, that must be one long conversation," Harry said in astonishment.

"They've probably just given themselves something to do while they waited for rescue."

"Well I can only see two possibilities in achieving that in their state; we could interface the Time Jumper to the _Briseus_ and go back in time to a point where their bodies are revivable, then return with them to our current time."

"Is the Time Module even capable of pulling a ship as large as _Briseus_ through a temporal journey?" asked Mckay.

"It should, if I supplement the power with _Briseus_'s enhanced ZPM and Neutrino Ion Generators."

"Wait, wait, wait, if we retrieve them in the past, then we wouldn't have detected the stasis pods and lifesigns in the first place. We'd create a causality paradox."

"Indeed, and the fact that we see no message from ourselves indicates that we didn't choose this option," Harry didn't have that much of a use for precognition beyond a few seconds into the future in a crisis, but he was not sensing any such time space causality loop.

"Okay," said Mckay, looking baffled yet fascinated at the concept. "So what was the second option?"

"Do the pods have independent life support?"

"Let me check," said the scientist, seeing where Harry was going with this and waving his scanner. "Yes, each pod has a small very advanced microfusion generator it seems…amazing."

"Therefore we can remove the pods from the ship and beam them over to _Briseus_."

"Then bring them back to Altantis?"

"Yes, then we'd need to call in the Asgard."

"You're gonna clone them and then transfer their minds to new bodies?"

"It'll only be once, the genetic degradation can be easily repaired, the Asgard have thanks to Earth's efforts and our generous offer for them to study our DNA, perfected a short term solution to their genetic problems. We gave them half a century of extra time thanks to our efforts. But I first need to speak to the Captain to ask his permission and enlist his help…is it possible for me to interface with the system."

"It's highly complex it would take me," he objected initially, "wait a minute," Mckay tapped his earpiece. "Mckay to MacTavish. Have you found any empty stasis pods?"

"_Quite a few, Doctor. Two decks below you. Why do you ask_?"

"I'll explain later, Colonel," said Harry, "meet us there."

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**Virtual Environment, Aurora**

Harry blinked and found himself standing on one of the outer piers of Atlantis. He was on one of the landing platforms for ships. He looked down and saw he was now wearing an off white jacket, with trousers and dark boots, which while minimalist, had the same geometric pattern common to all Alteran styles of dress.

He quickly surveyed his surroundings and saw that he was not alone. Sitting on the edge of the platform with his feet dangling over the edge, was an Alteran seemingly in his mid-fifties; it was hard to tell with Alterans…since they could age at will and enhanced with their medical tech, made them capable of immortality if they wished it, but few chose it.

The Alteran was staring over the endless ocean and seemingly in deep thought, and occasionally would chuck a stone from a small mound of crumbled debris that was next to him. Harry saw that he was wearing an identical uniform to the one he'd thought was the Captain. '_Good thing Mckay managed to isolate his cortical signal relative to the virtual environment. I'd spend forever looking for him_.'

"Captain Herodotus," he said, speaking in the last Alteran dialect to evolve.

The Alteran looked startled at the sound of a strange unfamiliar voice and turned his head to see Harry.

"Who are you?" the man looked appraisingly at him. "You wear the uniform of my crew, but I don't recognize you."

"I am Commodore Harry Potter of Terra, and I've come to take you all home."

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"Ten thousand years," mused Herodotus sadly. "This neural system responds to the conscious desires of the user, and I'm afraid that it has distorted me and my crew's sense of time completely. To us it feels as if merely a hundred years has passed."

"What are you all doing?"

"Oh we're scattered about this simulated Atlantis, some doing what we did before the Wraith war began. Some more military minded men like myself have continued to work on new strategies to be employed against the enemy. I can't imagine the effect it will have when I tell them of the fact that we lost the war…by the Infinity, what a misfortunate confluence of events." Herodotus kicked the small pile of debris in frustration, scattering everything into the ocean a few hundred feet below them.

"What do you mean Captain?" asked Harry in confusion.

"The Aurora carries a communiqué in its databanks, which was transmitted by a stealth operative that infiltrated a Wraith shipyard. He discovered a key weakness in Wraith technology that most assuredly would have allowed us to turn the tide of war back in our favour."

"The Wraith doesn't know we have returned to this Galaxy," said Harry significantly.

"Then this is _the_ time," said Herodotus strongly, smashing his fist into his palm for emphasis. "I can give you my access codes to download the communiqué. Then…well, I can't say that we will relish the thought of having to go through a mental transference into a cloned body, but I suspect the thought of finishing the Wraith off once and for all will encourage most of us to go along with you, our Descendants. I look forward to seeing the Asgard again at any rate."

"Excellent," grinned Harry. "I'm sure my General will appreciate it…but you must understand, that the Atlantis you remembered is gone…"

"Yes, yes, yes," Herodotus waved the matter off, "if she is as capable a leader as you tell me, then I'm willing to accept her command. It will also help that she has the support of…Aiyana, you said…a most unusual name, but seeing an Ancestor from that time will solidify the support of my crew most certainly. Not to mention you…and the fact that the old home galaxy is at war." Herodotus shook his head in disgust. "Those pesky parasites hardly seemed a threat in my time…they have grown far more powerful than I had believed possible."

"And we will welcome your help in dealing with them too, when the time comes," grinned Harry. "But one enemy at a time…gather your people Captain. Tell them."

"I will."

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Everyone was back aboard the _Briseus_, including the five hundred and fifty stasis pods containing the crew of the Aurora.

"Have you got it?" Harry asked.

"Right here," smirked Mckay in satisfaction, showing the screen of a Tablet PC.

"I'm detecting two hyperspace conduits approaching in subspace, it matches Wraith profiles," said Apollonia from the Control chair. "ETA, thirty minutes."

"Well let's not linger, then," He turned to Atlantis teams one and two. "Colonel."

"Attention! Render honours!" barked MacTavish and all ten including Sheppard faced the image of the derelict Aurora on the Bridge, and saluted.

"Send it," nodded Harry at his wife.

Apollonia nodded and the Briseus sent a command signal with Herodotus' access code. The results of the transmission was evident as five minutes later the old reactor of the Aurora went critical and detonated with a huge flash of energy, the shockwave rumbled _Briseus_ a bit, but it was nothing the giant ship couldn't shrug off.

_Briseus_ swooped in a turn, plunging into a Hyperspace window.

The Wraith would find nothing remaining of the ship, only scattered debris hardly bigger than the size of a fist. It was puzzling to them why a Lantean ship would only activate its distress beacon now. The Commander of the Wraith Cruiser eventually dismissed it as an old warship finally giving in to the rigors of age as it reactors could no longer keep containment…any Lanteans would've died in the explosion.

Barely twenty minutes of cursory scanning and both ships sent themselves back into hyperspace to their homeworlds. It was dangerous for them to come out of hibernation – not enough time had passed for their food supplies to regenerate.

It was fateful decision.

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**Ops, Atlantis, Lantea**

"Hardly here a week and already you dump a diplomatic function on me," Theron muttered to Harry as they came to a stop a safe distance from the Stargate.

"You don't like them?" he asked in mock astonishment. Theron just gave him a black look in response and stood in a straightbacked military posture. This was the wrong or right thing to do – depending on who you asked – in a chromesuit. "It's merely an Asgard delegation accompanying the cloning equipment they will use to revive the Alterans."

"Sue me for wanting to make a good impression, Commodore."

"I can give you a bit of advice in dealing with the Asgard, General; they value substance, not façade. You impress them with your accomplishments, not your shiny military brass."

"I see," she looked thoughtful.

"Incoming wormhole!" called Peter Grodin from the upper control room. The shield flared automatically into existence over its maw. "Receiving SGC IDC."

"Lower the shield!"

They waited a full eight seconds for the inbound travellers, and the first to enter was the diminutive form of Thor, followed a few moments later by Freya another of the Asgard High Council, and five other Asgard who Harry recognized as being scientists from the Asgard base on Mars.

Behind them a large tubular device floated through the event horizon, made of elegant curving Asgard construction and just barely made it through the Stargate – no doubt a cloning chamber.

"Greetings Councillor Freyr, Supreme Commander Thor," Theron bowed her head slightly. "Welcome to Atlantis."

"Greetings," said Thor, bowing his head in return and stared at his surroundings. Harry was rather astonished to see the equivalent of awe on the faces of the seven Asgard.

"Good to see you again my friend," laughed Harry, kneeling and placing his hand on Thor's small shoulder.

"We had heard of your success Harry, in finding the Lost City," Thor looked around, his black eyes fully open, "but actually being here is another matter entirely. The Asgard had seen hope with the defeat of the Replicators, now with this city found, we feel it."

"Well, I look forward to giving you a tour, I'm sure that we all have much to talk about, but I suspect we should get down to business," said Theron seriously.

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**Conference Room, Atlantis**

General Theron had invited the Asgard to join a briefing regarding the communiqué Aurora had been carrying, Freya and Thor accepted whilst the Asgard science team were escorted down to the various storage rooms around the city that housed the stasis pods to begin the slow process of reviving the Alterans from hibernation through cloning – starting with Captain Herodotus.

"I've been going over the data in communiqué and it is amazing," Mckay began excitedly. "Now bear with me, each race has its own unique interpretation of a hyperdrive, we have our interpretation, the Asgard has theirs, and the Wraith, again, have their own separate hyperdrive technology. Now what this Alteran operative found was the specific subspace frequencies which all Wraith hyperdrive technology operates on."

"By the Infinity, no wonder Herodotus was so pissed at his circumstances," exclaimed Harry, mulling over the possibilities of having the actual Wraith subspace frequencies. It was highly significant information.

"Just how does that help us wage a campaign against them?" asked MacTavish in confusion.

"It'll take some doing, but with this information, I believe we can equip the _Briseus_ and Atlantis with a device that can jam these frequencies in a preset radius of space, depending on the amount of power we can allocate to it…a member of the Alteran High Council called Janus came up with the idea," explained Mckay.

"So it'll stop the Wraith from using their Hyperdrive when we engage in battle, effectively stranding them whenever we get in range or they get close to the Lantean Star System?" asked Theron, musing over the tactical possibilities.

"No, it wouldn't stop them from using their hyperdrives at all, that's what so brilliant," said Mckay. "It will only destabilize their specific channel of hyperspace so when they try to enter it…"

"Their ships will be ripped apart," Harry grinned in amazement.

"I hate to put, as O'Neill would say, 'a dampener on this enthusiasm'," said Thor droningly. "But destabilizing subspace in the manner you are proposing has been attempted before by the Asgard, as an early means of preventing Replicator incursions. The Replicators based their hyperdrives off our own, it was an effective tactic – that while stopping our own hyperdrive operations within a solar system, would destroy any incoming Replicator ships."

"And you stopped because…" Mckay trailed off inviting elaboration. Thor glanced at Freyr, who nodded his head that he could continue.

"Destabilizing any part of subspace causes a dangerous form of radiation to be emitted, radiation that interferes with the normal operations of a Stargate. If the subspace destabilization field was active whilst a Stargate is also active within proximity – it would cause the Gate to overload…catastrophically. Using this form of aggressive defence would have forced us to 'bury' the Stargate, and with it, any means of escape should the battle not have gone in our favour."

"So we'd have to do the same, bury the Gate, if it ever came down to a siege," said Aiyana, "of course, in our case, we wouldn't have lost the option of Hyperspace, since our drives and Atlantis' wouldn't be effected. And we'd have to be careful when we use it in battle, make sure that we are not close to any inhabited worlds with a Stargate."

"Very well, Dr Mckay, I realize you have a lot on your plate now, but I want to you to give the construction of the jamming device top priority," Theron turned to Freyr. "Councillor Freyr, getting to the reason why we called you here, how long do you think it would take to revive all five hundred and fifty crewmembers of the Aurora?"

"The Cloning Tube we have brought is the latest Asgard design," explained Freyr. "It is based on the advancements Ambassador Potter gave us access to and the Alteran DNA manipulator found in the Milky Way not long ago. With this design we can reconstruct the DNA of a clone to a previously unheard of degree and since we are only cloning them once, the genetic degradation will be negligible. It will take on average a day for a cloned body to grown from the genetic template provided and the mind transferral is instantaneous. The Tube can create ten clones at once."

"Fifty five days, should be interesting," grinned Mckay, rubbing his hands together, no doubt looking forward to bouncing ideas off the Alterans.

"God help us," muttered Harry under his breath. He mentally debated with himself about warning Herodotus about Mckay…_naaah,_ _might put him off from leaving his virtual dreamland_.

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**Ops, Atlantis**

John Sheppard stood patiently waiting a safe distance from the Stargate, watching as technicians readied a MALP – it still threw him to see the thing actually hovering in mid-air. To be honest a lot of things in the past few months had 'thrown him' since that fateful helicopter trip in Antarctic. The chromesuit and PR8 AW he had training in was quite cool – if slightly awkward – it felt a bit retro to walk around in a skin tight suit of semi-fluidic smart alloy that was technically a semi-intelligent AI. But to compensate for it there was the PR8 and it was just 'cool' – he'd never expected to in his 'military lifetime' deal with energy weapons…maybe his grandchildren would, but not him.

He rested his arms over the weapon attached in its catches on his front armour and gave a glance to the others going on this first exploration mission from Atlantis into the Pegasus Galaxy. Colonel MacTavish was someone John could respect as a man and a commanding officer. He seemed like the kind of guy who could get things done – no matter what was thrown in his path to stop him.

Lieutenant Ford on the other hand looked almost like a cub in comparison to MacTavish's lion. The man had the boyish face look going for him and John had seen him goof around with his fellow Special Forces buddies in the Mess hall. Now the Lieutenant was all business and seemed to have shed that apparent naivety like a cloak and John knew the man, while young, was no stranger to this business.

The final member of their impromptu team was the very man who had recruited him into going on this whole thing. Commodore Potter. John couldn't make heads or tails really of the guy – sure he was the British equivalent of an USAF General – but he had never met one that went on ops, nor did the man have the frills of your typical General. Scuttlebutt said that he had been abducted as a child by aliens – and learned of the big Galaxy out there – and brought back the means for Earth to defend itself.

John would reserve judgement until he saw the guy in action.

The Gate started to dial and the chevrons locked themselves in barely five seconds, and the vertical wash of energy exploded outwards and settled into the weird sideways puddle effect. Now that was cool too. It groused him somewhat that they wouldn't be taking a Jumper on this first mission; he was itching to fly those babies.

The MALP hovered itself forward and disappeared into the puddle. Peter Grodin stood nearby, looking into a Tablet PC at the feed from the probe and his fingers tapped and slid on the touch sensitive interface. The man nodded to them and walked over. "MALP reads full viability and no immediate signs of activity around the Stargate. But its pitch black. For now, we're going to use the tried and true system for identification of inbound gate travellers with a slight twist. Your GDOs are now integrated and programmed into your specific chromesuit; make sure you send the mental command for it to be broadcasted. We will confirm via radio that the shield is down, and if you're in a Code Red your chromesuit HUD will indicate as well."

"All righ' folks, helmets and masks on," said MacTavish.

John barely thought about it before there was a bright flash in his eyes, and when it cleared, his helmet was over his head, with its HUD beginning to flash data at him in English. '_Holomask active'_ it displayed in the corner of his vision.

He looked at the other three and was somewhat amazed how little it actually took to make a person appear completely alien. They turned and saluted General Theron who was watching at the balcony of the control room overlooking ops – she smartly returned it.

MacTavish went through first, followed by Ford and Potter, and finally John took his third step through an event horizon…the wormhole twisted and turned, and just as quickly he was finishing his step on an alien world in an alien Galaxy – dominated by space vampires, go figure.

It sure was pitch black, though his HUD immediately flared green into Nightvision.

Potter walked over to the patiently waiting MALP, touched a button, and it vanished cloaking itself. They spread out in a wide formation and headed to this planet's relative north-west.

"_Okay, the database indicated there is an Alteran city on this planet, so we're going to search it for anything useful_," came the Commodore's voice over the team intercom. There was a forest directly in their path and undeterred they advanced. Before they even reached the treeline, MacTavish held up his arm. John's HUD showed lifesigns fast approaching and the team drew PR8s and waited.

Of all things a boy jumped out from a bush close to Ford, wearing a mask that looked quite like a Wraith warrior. The kid hadn't spotted the team yet, and he growled playfully before another child jumped out and tackled the first to the ground. Only then did they see the strange figures looming above them with weapons now lowered but poised nevertheless.

"Please don't hurt us!" babbled the child clearly frightened. John noted that the kid wore scruffy clothing but that it was well made nevertheless. '_Possible Agrarian society_' flashed the ever helpful AI in his mind.

At this point a very tall man with long brown hair rushed out of the forest raising his hands in a gesture of surrender and appeal, standing over the children.

"Please! They're just playing," pleaded the man in a deep voice, and helped the children to their feet.

'_Holster your weapons_,' said the Commodore over the private team link. John complied and watched as Potter approached the man.

"Holling," said the man nervously, holding his hand to his chest.

"I am Ambassador Potter. You have nothing to fear from us, we are but humble explorers and traders." His voice was slightly distorted by the chromesuit, obscuring their voices somewhat.

Holling nodded but was seemingly too preoccupied with making sure his son - judging by the love the man had in his eyes for the boy – was okay. "How many times have I told you not to go play in the forest after dark? I'm just glad you're safe." Father and son touched foreheads in a greeting probably only shared between family members. Holling stood and faced the Commodore again.

"Teyla will wish to meet with you. Come."

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Holling led the way through the forest, first finding a path, then leading them on a walk a good distance from the Stargate. Holling's son and his friend kept a mini-inquisition going on, and somehow had designated John as their target.

"What do you call yourselves?"

"We are Terrans." The name would mean nothing to the children – it sounded cool though and Earth Latin was sufficiently distant from Alteran that it would mean nothing to the Wraith either.

"Why do you wear that shiny stuff and what's over your head?"

"We're not like you; we can't live on planets like this, so we need this 'suit' to survive." Disinformation pure and simple.

"Where are you from?" came the next question.

"A galaxy far, far away." John answered with a laugh. Commodore Potter had told them with a completely straight face to answer in that fashion.

He noticed the mask the kid had been playing with. "Wraith? What are you doing, playing Wraith and Human?" John chuckled, figuring it was the Pegasus version of Cops and Robbers. The kid merely shrugged, looking embarrassed.

They finally entered a large camp site, with leather walled huts and stilted tents; people dressed in similar fashion to Holling milled about, looking curiously at the new arrivals. John estimated around a hundred odd people called the camp home. They had the look of nomads and hunters more than farmers.

Holling stood at the lip of one of the largest tents and called to its occupants, "It's Holling. I bring visitors from away."

"Enter," replied a woman's voice.

Holling again led the way inside the tent followed by the Commodore, MacTavish and Ford. John entered and could see the apprehensive looks of a group of men and women seated around a table inside. To one side stood a woman with a light cocoa complexion and rather intricate leather clothes, looking at the four of them appraisingly.

"I am Teyla Emmagan, Daughter of Tughan," she introduced herself, frowning in concentration at them.

"Ambassador Potter," said the Commodore again, and then gestured to each of his fellow Terrans. "MacTavish, Ford and Sheppard."

"You have the look of beings we have never encountered before," said Teyla.

"We are explorers from another Galaxy, we call ourselves Terrans. We seek only knowledge and trade."

"We do not trade with strangers," countered Teyla, seemingly relaxing somewhat.

"That is understandable," said Potter. "Therefore we must get to know each other. We Terrans value life, but will not hesitate to defend ourselves. Each day most of us will say a prayer to the Creator and give thanks for the gift of a new day, and the acquisition of knowledge in all its forms is our highest goal."

Teyla nodded in understanding and replied, "Each morning before dawn our people drink a stout tea to brace us for the coming day. Will you join us?"

"We would be honoured."

Drinking the tea was adventure in itself for John, though the Commodore took it in his stride – the chromesuit AI actually grew a straw for him to drink with. They learned that these nomadic hunters referred to themselves as Athosians. They were not nomadic by choice though. They moved from world to world through the Stargate to minimize chances of a Wraith encounter – even though the last Athosian encounter with a space vamp was over two generations ago – their oral history was alive and well in the lessons learned since the last time the Wraith 'culled' the Athosians.

The topic of their actual mission eventually came up; when the Commodore mentioned that they were also seeking knowledge of the Alterans and had found reference to the city on the 'Athosian planet' – although he referred to them as Ancients.

"The city of the ancestors is not safe," said one of the men at the table.

"We ca' 'andle ourselves," countered MacTavish.

"The Wraith will come."

"How do you know that?" asked John reasonably.

"We do not know of the exact cause, but our people have long believed that the Wraith will come if we venture into the old city, but it is a belief we have not tested in a long time," admitted Teyla.

"Perha' they 'ave trip sensors on the old place," suggested MacTavish.

"Entirely plausible. But we have the technology to look for such things and will search the city very carefully."

"We could not stop you by force I suspect, nor will we try, your technology is seemingly great and should the Wraith encounter you they will not hesitate to attack you," said Teyla gravely. "They do not tolerate those with the power to contest their dominance…we have seen evidence of them destroying civilizations that begin to develop too much. It would be best if you left this Galaxy…"

"It would be best for the Wraith if we did that, not you," countered John.

Teyla looked surprised at this statement.

"We thank you for the tea, Teyla Emmagan," Potter said, standing. "Sheppard will keep you company for the duration of our search of the city." They exited the tent, followed by most of the Athosians and John wondered what he had done to deserve this honour, then again, searching an abandoned Alteran city would most likely be quite boring – he had a feeling that the Wraith would've stripped anything of value.

"Guess it's just you and me…and him," smiled John, looking at the man that had objected to their presence, stubbornly remaining behind.

"Your leader is well spoken, but I do not think you comprehend the threat of the Wraith."

"Perhaps not, but we know their type, we're fighting a war in our home galaxy against a similar foe – though the whole 'feeding on sentient beings thing' is a new one," grinned John.

"So you are here to stay?"

"Yes."

"Then there is something you must see."

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Teyla led John to a cave in the slope of hill just under a kilometre away from the Athosian settlement. Its entrance was well concealed with foliage and looked entirely natural. "I used to play here as a child, I believe this is where the survivors hid from the Wraith during the last great attack." They were in the mouth of the cave now and Teyla grabbed a torch stuck in the wall – it was nothing more than a thick stick with linens wrapped around its top – and pointed a nifty little gadget that emitted a sparkly beam of light and instantly the torch caught fire.

"Where did you get that?"

"Traded for it," she answered. John shrugged guessing it must have come from one of the more relatively advanced human societies under Wraith oppression in Pegasus.

They went deeper into the cave and the torchlight reflecting on something caught John's eye. He stopped and examined it. It was metallic and caked in dust and dirt on a stone that stood at hip level. His fingers dug for it and revealed that it was actually the circular pendant about the size of a penny…a necklace.

"What's this?" he asked Teyla. She came over, holding the torch to better distinguish it.

"I lost this, years ago," she said in astonishment. "How did you…?"

"It was just lying here, reflecting the light," explained John opening the clasp, figuring that he'd be a gentleman and give the lady her necklace back. Teyla realized what he was doing and lifted her hair out of the way, allowing him to put it around her neck. John suddenly felt awkward as Teyla fingered the pendant, and he pointed to the cave drawings on the wall – no doubt what she wanted him to see. "Someone's been busy."

"The drawings in the caves are extensive," nodded Teyla, moving away to shine the torch over them to illuminate them better. "Many must date back thousands of years or more."

"Does this represent the destruction of the city?" pointed John to the crude drawing of a Wraith Hive ship sending a beam of light down to the ground and representations of people getting pulled up in it.

"This drawing far predates that."

"So someone knew it was going to happen?"

"I believe it happens again and again. The Wraith allows our kind to grow in numbers and when that number reaches a certain point they return to cull their human herd. Sometimes a few hundred years will pass before they awaken again. We've visited many, many worlds. I know of none untouched by the Wraith. The last great Holocaust was five Generations ago, still they return in smaller numbers to remind us of their power."

"It's a hell of a way to live," said John gravely. It was clear Teyla didn't understand the expression literally, but she understood the gist of it.

"We move our hunting camps around, we try to teach our children not to live in fear but it's hard, some of us can sense the Wraith coming, that gives us warning...we should go it will be dark soon."

Teyla turned to leave but John was too busy comprehending what his chromesuit AI was screaming about.

"Crap! Teyla…" he reached out with a hand, so frantic was he that he didn't even think and…the necklace strained against her for a moment, then its clasp snapped and it soared through the air and into John's hand.

'_Damn, didn't mean to do that…_' all members of the Atlantis expedition had also been given as much Metaphysic training as they could squeeze in. John had only had two months of it, but it was enough that he could now do telekinesis and telepathy quite reliably and well. He saw Teyla's wide eyed expression. '_Too late now_.'

He threw the necklace to the ground and unlatched his PR8, charging it up, and sent a single blast directly into the pendant, vaporizing it.

"What…" she stammered.

"I'll explain later, how fast can you get your people evacuated and through the Gate?"

"Immediately if we have to, though we will have left all our food provisions and belongings…why?"

"That pendant was a tiny device that activated the moment it touched your skin, it broadcasted our presence and location…I have a feeling, to the Wraith."

The seriousness in his tone must have registered to her, because she put aside immediately what she saw and charged out of the cave, John following easily in her wake.

'_Sheppard to Potter, we're going to have company_…"

'_Yes, your AI informed mine, by Infinity of the most innocuous things a fucking pendant does it…I'm teleporting Ford and MacTavish to the camp. Have you informed Teyla?_"

'_Yes, but if they're going to evacuate now they're going to have to abandon everything…_"

"_And we can't leave them in the lurch like that, not when its technically our fault, very well, we will evacuate them to Atlantis_."

'_Theron's not going to like that, Sir_,' Ford's voice came over the team's link.

'_I have the same rank as she, she can shout at me in private, but we can take measures to secure the knowledge of us and Atlantis in the Athosian's minds. Besides she can't deny the value of having allies here to give us recent Intelligence on the state of Pegasus_.'

John and Teyla was halfway to the camp when his AI informed him that the Cloaked MALP reported Gate activity. In his HUD a small video feed appeared showing the active Stargate…and three Wraith Darts shot out of the puddle into the air.

"The Wraith are here!" shouted John in warning to Teyla. He could hear a screaming whine echoing through the air and realized that whatever the Dart had as propulsion certainly didn't like to work in an atmosphere – though it did add to the intimidation factor like the old Stuka's in WWII.

He could now hear explosions resonating from the camp.

'_The Wraith are strafing the camp_!' shouted MacTavish in the link.

'_They beamed away three people right in front of me_!' said Ford.

Now John recognized PR8 plasma fire streaking up into the air, striking a Dart multiple times amidships that sent it trailing a cloud of smoke as it streaked overhead.

It was then that John felt it, a presence…an old, malevolent mind trying to infringe on his own…to make him see things on the ground all around him…he gritted his teeth and shored up his mind striking back with all the concentration he could spare.

The presence was soon gone, and just in time, as he almost tripped on a log he had to jump over.

He next heard and saw a massive explosion in the air.

'_Go' the fucker_!' crowed MacTavish.

John heard the Dart high in the air above him, and his AI screamed in warning. He latched his PR8, and the Mk2 Stinger launcher appeared with a flash of light on his shoulder, and he turned to fire…too late. He was forced to dive out of the way of a luminescent beam of light emitted from the belly of the Dart… that just missed him by inches.

Teyla was not so lucky, he just managed to glimpse her being swallowed by the beam…vanishing. He willed the Stinger to vanish into the suit's matter buffer and continued his run to the camp. The MALP reported that the Gate had come on again and he watched the video of the two remaining Darts – one obviously damaged - swooping through the puddle.

He unlatched his PR8 again, despite the fact that the danger apparently over and continued his run. By happenstance his path crossed with the wreckage of the destroyed Dart. It was just as ugly in a million pieces as it was in one solid piece, with organic metal sections sparking and on fire.

Movement caught his eye and he watched in disgust as what had to be a dismembered arm of the Wraith pilot, severed just below the elbow, drag itself along the ground with its fingers.

"Son of a…" he set his weapon to stun, and shot the limb…_Dr Beckett going to wanna take a look at that_, especially as it seemed to be the arm with the feeding organ.

He span around aiming his weapon automatically as a teary eyed boy – Holling's son - appeared, even more thoroughly dishevelled. "Help me!" cried the boy. "I can't find my father." Sheppard stepped forward, putting a hand on the kid's shoulder sympathetically, whilst staring at the Wraith hand.

"Don't worry, kid, we will…we will."

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**Conference Room, Ops, Atlantis**

Harry sat and stared resolutely at the others seated there in the debriefing, joining them for the first time was Major Sheppard and also newly revived Captain Herodotus. The Alteran was much younger now in appearance, seemingly in his mid-thirties, and was wearing a chromesuit that had been issued to him, until clothes more to his taste could be fashioned.

"Let me get this straight, you wish to rescue the taken Athosians?" asked Theron severely.

"It's easily within our means," retorted Harry. "The MALP recorded the Wraith's outgoing wormhole destination on the DHD."

"Even with those six symbols there are still hundreds of permutations…" interrupted Mckay.

"Seven hundred and twenty," said Sheppard.

"Yes, I knew that of course," Mckay looked at the Major strangely. "I'm just surprised that _you_ did."

"Well, there's a lot you don't know about me…we just have to take away the coordinates we can't get a lock on, and that's the one."

"Enough," interrupted Theron. "Give me one good reason why we should do this, Commodore, and risk exposing ourselves for who we really are to the Wraith."

"It would give us an opportunity for our first strike against them, and in the process rescue the five Athosians, one of whom is their leader…it would certainly build trust between us. Because face it, we will need local help as well to achieve our goal."

"Any other opinions, Major?" invited Theron, when she saw the man move in his seat.

"I'd hate to be the one to tell Jinto we'd just abandoned his father and left him an orphan because it would be too inconvenient for us to make a rescue, ma'am." Sheppard said pointedly.

"Herodotus?"

The Alteran looked surprised that Theron was calling on him, but eventually said, "If this was the old Lantean Council, they would've helped the Athosians relocate to another planet, and left the five taken to their fates. There were many times during the war I wished to turn my ship around and forcefully put some 'consideration' back into their minds for the impact their decisions were having on the local worlds. As a ship commander I saw first hand the suffering the Wraith wrought, but I had to follow standing orders and not intervene…when I so clearly could. It would only have taken two well aimed drones – or a single shot from any of the weapon arrays to stop some of the massacres I've witnessed."

"Thank you," nodded Theron with a deep sigh. "We will go with my first instinct then – bring 'em back, Commodore."

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The Stargate burst to life and a MALP hovered through the event horizon an hour later. In the Control room, everyone was watching the feed being projected on a large holoscreen mounted so it faced all the Consoles. It was made on Earth and interfaced with Atlantis' systems and the Terran made ones brought with them.

"We're receiving visual telemetry," reported Grodin.

The screen came to life and showed only darkness.

"I can't see anything," Theron frowned at Mckay.

"There's no atmospheric readings at all, the MALP says it's in hard vacuum," reported the scientist looking at his laptop. A large bright round object flashed past on the screen. "Switching visual sensors to lock on it…" The image stabilized and they saw a planet and the Stargate orbiting above it.

"It's a Spacegate," said Herodotus. "They're fitted with small pulse engines that automatically keep the Stargate in a stable high orbit. We did this eventually to keep most of the human societies isolated on their planets – so they would only achieve interstellar contact when they'd had developed enough to launch themselves into space. We stepped up the campaign to do this during the War, since initially the Wraith had no Darts or smaller craft. They would be forced to come to the planets in ships and we in turn would be waiting for them."

"We'll just have to go in a Jumper then, suitably disguised of course," grinned Harry with relish.

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**Jumper Bay, Atlantis**

John stared in amazement at the craft that sat on the central floor of the Bay. It looked nothing like the Jumpers at all – its hull was gleaming solid silver, instead of the dark bronze colour. Instead of having a flat front, it had solid round nose and in the rear tapered to a sharp finish on its upper hull.

"You can relax, Major," Potter came out of the rear end of the ship. "It's a camouflage field; that operates on an independent power source. The Jumper is still underneath."

"Cool," grinned John.

"So you think you're up to piloting her?"

"I feel like I was born ready, Sir."

MacTavish, Ford, and another four Special Operators, from Alpha 2, strode into the Bay, heading towards the modified Jumper.

"Let's get this show on the road."

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**Unnamed System, far side of the Pegasus Galaxy**

The Spacegate burst into life and the moment the event horizon stabilized the Jumper burst out of it before quickly Cloaking. The Gate shut down…only to come on again. This time to send the MALP back through that had obediently hovered near the Stargate waiting for its owners to send it back. The Gate flicked off yet again as the probe finished going through.

The invisible Jumper turned around and headed off towards the planet.

"This is cool," John was amazed at the feeling of his mind connected with every system on the little ship.

"Looks like you've got the hang of it," Ford said from the co-pilot seat with a grin.

"Tell you what, Lieutenant, a lot of fighter pilots would kill to fly this thing."

"Perhaps we should look into asking for some pilots to be recruited, to fly the Jumpers."

"Not a bad idea, Lt." grinned Potter, as a holoscreen appeared superimposed over the front window.

"Did you do that?" Ford asked.

"I was just wondering where we go from here," as John stared at the readings the ship was taking of the planet below. It showed lifesigns and a mass of faint energy readings coming from a point on the largest northern continent. He automatically turned the Jumper to that heading.

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Fifteen minutes later the ship came to a hover just a few meters over a grassy terrain with interspersed trees dotted everywhere. There was a huge mound a few hundred meters away, with trees growing on top of it. It was clear that this was not a natural formation in comparison to the terrain around it.

"Dimensions are consistent with a Hive Ship," Potter had his palm on the controls. "Seems like they landed the thing and let nature take its course."

"Tha's hundreds of years of dirt and vegetation, Sir," MacTavish was clearly incredulous that a ship could last under the assault of nature for that long.

"Teyla did say the Wraith attacks had become cyclical, perhaps they go into a hibernation of sorts," suggested John.

MacTavish walked to inner bulkhead door, opened it and addressed Alpha 2. "All righ', teams of two, learn what you ca', lay down the defences as you see fit. Move out." Alpha 2 led the way out of the Jumper, their PR8s raised and scanning the area. John, MacTavish and Potter walked out, their helmets a solid reflective silver. There would be no need to talk on this mission.

'_Alpha 2, I wanna be able to ligh' my cigar in this place if I have to._' MacTavish ordered over the team link. The four professional soldiers immediately dispersed and began materializing C4 and Claymores. '_Engage the enemy only when under fire._'

"_Sheppard, MacTavish, you're with me_," said Potter. "_Ford assist Alpha 2_.'

Ford nodded and headed off, whilst John followed in his two superior officers' respective wakes.

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The inside of the buried Hive ship was rather eerie, organic power conduits, organic floors, walls, bulkheads, all in blues, reds and greens, with a white mist that hung on the floor. It distinctly felt like walking in a giant creature, and perhaps that analogy was not that far off from the truth – the Hive ship could be considered alive by some definition.

Harry signalled with his hand to hide in an alcove…a lifesign was approaching. That was the other odd thing.

"_Thought this was going to be the hard part_,' said Sheppard in confusion, as what was clearly a Wraith warrior drone, carrying a long curved weapon came striding past the intersection.

'_Clearly very few Wraith are actually awake_,' Harry scanned for any human lifesigns. _'I've got them, fifty meters that way_.'

They advanced carefully, keeping a watch on their sensors for any more approaching Wraith. Finally they approached a cell that had hard organic webbing acting as bars, and within were only four Athosians.

Teyla noticed them and rushed up to the edge of the webbing, desperation and hope clear on her face.

"Ambassador? Is that you?"

"Shh, are you alright?" Harry said, while ordering the other two to keep a lookout on both sides of the corridor.

"How did you find us?" she asked in astonishment, but at a much lower volume.

"Is my son alive?" whispered Holling desperately, also coming closer.

"He's well and waiting for you, where's the fifth Athosian?"

"Toran was taken by the Wraith, we don't know where," Teyla said in worry.

"Major, put some C4 on this webbing, stay here and on my signal, blow it and get them out of here," ordered Harry "MacTavish, with me."

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It took them another fifteen minutes to scout towards the potential location of Toran, there was a human lifesign deeper in the Hive Ship. He and MacTavish had to stop and hide a few more times to avoid Wraith, and one occasion he had to even disillusion them both when it became clear there was no place to hide in the corridor they were in at the time.

When they finally reached the location, they were on a balcony overlooking a large hall, within was a long crude table with not entirely appetising food on it. Toran was on his knees, his shirt ripped off and what had to be a tall Wraith Queen with red hair, had her hand on his chest and growling in satisfaction.

Harry watched in sickened disgust as Toran, a man who looked somewhere in his late twenties, aged literally before his eyes.

"How many years must I take from you before you tell us what you know of the newcomers?" growled the Queen at Toran, her voice was throaty and disturbing, not sounding female at all. "Or shall I take them all?"

Toran was now the equivalent of an extremely elderly man, with white hear, sagging skin.

Harry shook his head and brought his PR8 up, aiming - a three round burst of plasma shot into the Queen's head, leaving it a ruptured ruin. But it was too late for Toran, the man collapsed to the floor, now nothing but a desiccated corpse that looked as if it had been dead for a long time. He shifted his aim to the three Warrior Wraith and killed one before the others returned fire with whispy blue energy bolts.

MacTavish's PR8 also killed another Wraith that had been trying to flank them, as Harry retreated from the balcony back into the corridor. He materialized the device he had specially brought for this mission and set about arming it.

"_Didn't know nukes came that small_," barked MacTavish, squeezing off more shots and felling another Wraith.

"_New design for SG teams when the shit really hits the fan_," grinned Harry, and shoved the armed suitcase nuke into a recess near the floor where it wouldn't easily be spotted and he overlaid a disillusionment over it for good measure. _'Alright Major, blow that cell_.'

'_Understood_' replied Sheppard.

A loud ringing high pitched alarm suddenly sounded throughout the hallways. '_That's our cue to leave._' Harry grabbed a hold of MacTavish and Teleported.

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John escorted the four Athosians on the route they had taken to get in, and soon managed to find the way out of the Hive ship. Luckily, it seemed whatever the Commodore had done, had caused all the Wraith to be summoned to his position, meaning that they didn't encounter a single bad guy and easily left the Hive Ship

It was only as they were halfway towards the Jumper that the whine of Darts in the air could be heard. Again he holstered his PR8 and brought out a Stinger launcher, this time managing to turn around and making sure the Athosians were not in the backblast, fired off a missile which obliterated the Dart that been aiming to strafe them with those damn Culling beams.

More missiles from Alpha 2 soared into the air, destroying five more Darts and when they finally reached the Jumper he found MacTavish and Potter already waiting there.

_Oh yeah, he can Leap_. _I am _so _learning that_.

Everyone retreated into the Jumper, plus four Athosians.

John threw himself into the pilot's chair and slammed his hands down on the controls. "Now what am I thinking?"

The Jumper soared into the air, just as two new Darts strafed the ground with weapons fire…and cloaked.

"Everybody Okay back there?" asked John, turning briefly to the harried and bewildered Athosians.

"We are well enough," Teyla replied.

"Pause at sixty thousand feet Major, give us a view of the Hive," ordered the Commodore. John nodded and eased up on the angle of ascent. When they were in position, Potter took a seat at the co-pilot station, placed his hands on the controls as well. He felt him send a signal using the Jumper's com system. "Everyone close your eyes."

There was a blinding flash for a brief moment, which John could even see through his closed eyelids and helmet. When it was gone, he looked awed and slightly horrified with a sight that had terrified Terrans since the first one was detonated over Nagasaki during WWII. The mushroom cloud completely obscured what had been the Hive Ship…which was now utterly destroyed.

"By the Ancestors," muttered Teyla, clearly struggling to comprehend.

"_Did we have nukes?_" asked John in astonishment.

"_Yes, it's a new device being issued on strategic missions to SG teams, Naquadria enhanced suitcase nuke,'_ explained the Commodore. John shook it off and turned the Jumper back into its ascent. "The hard part is coming up, Major," Potter pointed out the forward viewport. The Jumper was out of the atmosphere and in orbit rapidly approaching the Spacegate – which was surrounded by three Darts aiming themselves outwards, whilst five more hovered in a loose formation ready to pursue the instant they showed themselves.

"Clearly they don't like people blowing up their Hive Ships," muttered John.

"What can we do?" asked Teyla with worry.

"We're safe as long they can't see us," assured Ford.

"They don't have to – there's only one way for us to go. The minute we activate the Stargate they can start shooting blind and blow us away on our approach."

"Decloak and lure them away from the Gate, Major," said Potter, still in the copilots seat. "You focus on manoeuvring and I'll fire the Jumper's weapons."

"Understood."

The Jumper decloaked and instantly four drones spiralled out of the launchers, each heading unerringly to a Dart under the direction of the Commodore's mind and blowing them up. John pulled a hard left and banked away from the Spacegate. Three Darts chased after them, only leaving one to stand guarding the Gate.

Again, drones shot out, three this time - homing with lethal finality to destroy the Darts on their tail.

John jerked the Jumper back on a heading to the Gate and the Commodore began dialling with the small DHD mounted between them. The Stargate burst into life and the event horizon settled into stability. The last Dart began firing desperately, now blocking their path into the Gate. Another drone fired by the Commodore made short work of it.

"Sending IDC." John saw the return signal on his own HUD indicate that the shield was lowered on the other side. He retracted the drive pods and threaded the needle so to speak, diving the ship into the active Stargate.

An exhilarating ride through subspace later and he watched as the ship was caught by the hidden graviton emitters, and stopped the Jumper within two feet of the central staircase in Ops. The inertial dampeners were amazing…John didn't even so much as feel a bit of Gs pulling that stop, when by all rights everyone should be pancakes on the forward viewport.

John smiled with relief as the Jumper went on autopilot up through the roof and back into the Bay and said, "Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to Atlantis. Please remain seated until the Puddle Jumper comes to a full and complete stop."

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Harry stood out of the copilot seat and turned to face Teyla and the other four Athosians.

"We have sheltered your fellow Athosians in the walls of Atlantis, Teyla, rest easy that they are safe."

"Is this…?" her eyes went wide. "This is _the_ city of the Ancestors?"

"Now you will learn something that your fellows already know," he said kindly. '_Remove your helmets_.'

Flashes of light accompanied their helmets vanishing, and revealed their true faces.

"_You_ are the Ancestors?" she gasped.

"In a manner of speaking, Teyla," smiled Harry gently. "Some of us are their descendants, others come from their ancient home before they even walked among these stars millions of years ago. There are some whom you would Ancestors, but they are very few among us – we only recently rescued them." Teyla was clearly too overwhelmed to reply. "Come we have much to speak about."

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**Ops, Atlantis**

Night had fallen on Lantea and an aura of celebration hung in the air. Theron had felt that the Athosians, not to mention the Terrans as well, needed a social event to fan the sparks of the relationship between the two peoples – especially if they wanted them as allies. It would also help to get rid of the rather embarrassing reverence that the Athosians held for anything Alteran.

John emerged from the throng of the party and walked out onto the main balcony off the Control room – it had the best view in the city. Ford accompanied him. It was strange how one could find friendship; it could be as simple as meeting someone in a bar, or in this case, helping to rescue four Athosians from space vampires and blowing up their ship, but it didn't matter how it happened in the end.

"I guess this is home now," grinned Ford, leaning a foot on the lower rail of the balustrade.

"I guess so," murmured John.

"I'm thinking of a little place with an ocean view," the younger man gestured to expansive city around them, as if thinking of which apartment he wanted to live in, "out of the way."

Theron and the Commodore also emerged from the throng and onto the balcony, each carrying two glasses filled with Champagne. "Major. Lieutenant," she said, and they handed them their extra glasses. "I thought the occasion merited opening this. Compliments of General Thompson."

John thoughtfully took a sip and enjoyed the fuzzy alcohol as he looked over the dark waters beyond Atlantis.

"Something bothering you, Major?" asked Commodore Potter.

"I think it's only hitting me now that we're in a _true _War, seeing that mushroom cloud over an alien world…" John sighed. "The Gulf and Afghanistan…they're minor quarrels in comparison to what we're going to be dealing with out here."

"Quite right," nodded Potter. "But we can do all the soul searching and moralizing we want, sooner or later, the Wraith would have found a way to upgrade their Hive Ships with transgalactic ability and expand their feeding grounds to neighbouring Galaxies. Best we fight them in their backyard, rather than our own."

"And look what we've done in the meantime," Theron gestured to the party. "We've made new friends. Who knows what could blossom from it?" They watched through the windows as Holling had an affectionate moment with his son, Jinto, the two of them touching their foreheads together in the Athosian familial greeting.

Teyla who was standing near the balcony window door, came forward at this point, having heard the discussion. "I agree, Major Sheppard." She advanced to Commodore Potter and placed her hands on his shoulders, he grinned at her warmly and they touched foreheads, she then repeated the gesture to the General, Ford, and finally John.

"You have earned both my friendship and that of my people," she said, taking a step back from them. "And with our help you will make many more friends."

Mckay and Aiyana entered the balcony, both carrying Tablet PCs and looking grave.

"We apologize for breaking the festive atmosphere but this couldn't wait," Aiyana gestured for Mckay to begin.

"I've went over the Jumper sensor logs of the rescue mission this afternoon," Mckay said uncomfortably. "It recorded a massive subspace burst transmission sent from the Hive just moments after the Commodore killed the Wraith Queen."

"Where was the message sent?" asked Theron.

"It was omni directional…it reached every corner of the Galaxy," Aiyana reported.

"I've had Herodotus look at it since he's the only one who can read the Wraith language among us," Mckay handed over his Tablet to the Commodore.

"It wasn't encrypted in any way?" Potter read the Tablet and raised an eyebrow at Mckay.

"No."

"What does it say?" asked Teyla worriedly.

"It's quite brief, a single word…_Awaken_."

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_A/N: Ooohhh! Ominous. Here's a nice mega-chapter for ya, folks. Hope you enjoyed. Back to the Milky Way next chapter._


	40. Chapter 40

_**Chapter 40 – Evolution**_

**Hebridan – 9000 LY from Earth**

"The fact of the matter is; members of the Board, that the Goa'uld have in the recent years increased their FTL capability by great orders of magnitude. The vastness of the Galaxy is no longer the shield it once was for the free worlds that exist in it."

Harry stood with his arms folded into the voluminous sleeves of his formal Alteran robes, addressing the Executive Board of Tech Con – seated around a high tech conference table that would entirely have been at home in an Earth corporate HQ.

Hebridan, the home planet of Warrick – the Serrakan whom he and SG1 had rescued from his own escaped prisoners – was a Corporatocracy. While they maintained some semblance of a republican government, the Hebridan Union was run primarily like a business, and the Mega Corporation responsible for that was Tech Con. Utilities, including hospitals, schools, the defence force and the police was privatized. The social welfare function normally carried out by a government was instead carried out by Tech Con in the form of benefits to the employees. Hebridan was exactly what Earth could have been in another hundred years…had Harry not fielded the idea for the STO, and set Earth onto the more moderate path of rule by elected Executive Council.

"Well that may be true Ambassador," said Mr Hagan, raising his hand. "Goa'uld territory is mostly on the other side of the Galaxy – they have no capability for expansion into this end. They do not know we exist."

"That is also true," conceded Harry to the most Senior Board member of Tech Con – the de facto 'President' of Hebridan. What also made the man interesting was that he was a Human/Serakkin Hybrid. Harry had had no idea the two races could successfully produce offspring. Hagan had the highly sensitive ears lobes of a Serakkin, but much more 'human' tone of skin, and hair. "Which is why we're not asking you to be involved in the War at all. Just to become an 'invisible' member of the Alliance."

Hagan and a few of the Directors around the conference table raised surprised eyebrows at that.

"You are in no position to help, since your Hyperdrive technology is at a level where your ships would take years to get to the closest Goa'uld holding," Harry explained reasonably. "My people's goal here is merely the opening of trade and diplomatic relations between our planets. There is much we both have to gain."

"Such as?" Hagan invited elaboration.

"Terra can arrange to have a secure Stargate shipped to Hebridan; it has been upgraded with technologies that allow you to control who or what comes through, for example."

"And what would Terra want in return?" asked another Board member.

"One of your top of the line sublight Ion propulsion systems and if we throw in a lesson on how to get your Hyperdrives 'up to speed' so to speak," Harry grinned, "then we'd like any unique ship mounted weapon system you may have."

The various Tech Con board members looked at each other, and then almost as one turned to Director Hagan. The Tech Con director was frowning thoughtfully and staring out the large transparent steel window that looked out of the Hebridan capital city, with its tall hundreds of meters high buildings and lines of orderly flying vehicles that snaked between them.

"Such a trade seems rather, if you'll forgive me, rather favourable to our side; for the Stargate alone you could have asked for both the engine and weapons," Hagan stated with a curiously raised eyebrow.

"The relationship our people could cultivate in the future and your entry into the Alliance is more valuable," countered Harry earnestly.

"Just how many and who are in this Alliance already?" another Director asked, this one a female Serakkin.

"My world Terra, the Tok'ra, the Asgard, Pangara, and most recently Orbania joined." The Orbanians; the reason why Terra had gotten the original Naquadah Reactors, had finally come on board, by sending their Ambassador and a Military delegation to Luna to take residence in _Tranquility_ Base. The Orbanians had also began their own warship program, which was coming along quite speedily because of their expertise in nanotechnology – using it to literally 'grow' the hulls of their ships, it had been impressive to watch. "Joining the Alliance would mean an exchange of Ambassadors, trade, and signing of a mutual defence treaty. I'm sure you could all see the value if, God forbid, the Goa'uld happen to attack or find you at some point, that an Asgard Battlecruiser or a Terran Destroyer could be here in two and a half standard hours to help you out. Alliance ships would also begin a regular patrol, and we'd engage in joint military exercises."

"Let's discuss terms," Director Hagan suddenly grinned, seemingly making the decision. "Is the Board in agreement?" Everyone nodded.

"Excellent, the Loop of Con Garat is due to begin in an hour. I don't want to miss it."

"Neither do I," Harry chuckled. He, just like the other Directors didn't want to miss the rather dangerous space race, Sam and Warrick was involved in.

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**Jaffa Planet, Deep in Goa'uld Territory**

The planet, like most others, was trees…as Jack would say. Other than that it's only other significance was that it had a significant population of Jaffa, much like Chulak. And like the latter world it was ruled by the Goa'uld Moloc in much the same way as Apophis had done. It was from this planet where Moloc drew his Jaffa to battle in the 'War of the gods'. As the SGC had predicted, with Anubis still out there somewhere, licking his wounds at the hands of Earth, the 'United Alliance of the System Lords' lost all impetus for staying together and resumed their feuding ways, with Ba'al now as the 'top dog' so to speak. Ba'al had in a surprise attack turned on his fellow System Lords again, and since the sneaky Goa'uld was well…sneaky, had managed to come away with the largest amount of motherships and Jaffa before the other System Lords could wipe their eyes out and counter-attack.

Of course, the STO loved this situation, the Goa'uld were fighting each other again, spending resources and manpower…but it wouldn't last, not with Anubis still out there and undoubtedly planning for his second act. Therefore the SGC SpecOps forces shifted their aim to focus exclusively on Ba'al. SG1 and the other Recon teams on the other hand had been tagged to help the Jaffa Rebellion.

Which was what Harry and SG1 were doing on this planet, in full AW gear, ready for anything.

They were currently tracking a single Jaffa lifesign through the woods a mile or so from the Gate. Jack initiated first contact and popped out from behind a tree, and had his PR8 aimed and ready to fire.

"All right, hold it! Right there!"

Harry, Teal'C, Daniel and Sam, also popped out in ambush positions, allowing the Jaffa in question no escape.

"I am Ryk'l of the Goa'uld Moloc," the Jaffa said warily, keeping his hands at his sides and he was strangely unarmed. Ryk'l's dark eyes darted around their presence in concealed surprise, his swarthy skin looking rather sweaty. Teal'C approached the Jaffa and Ryk'l immediately recognized him as a fellow Jaffa, looking surprised that he was armed as a Tau'ri. "**Shal kek nem ron**."

"I, too, will die free, brother." Teal'C nodded and shook hands in the Jaffa manner of a one armed 'monkey' grip.

"Teal'c of the Tau'ri? Your legend precedes you. Thank you for meeting me." Ryk'l surveyed them and nodded in greeting, before turning back to Teal'C.

"We have been told that there are a great many here who believe in the dream of freedom for all Jaffa." Teal'c stated seriously getting down to business.

"INCOMING!" shouted Harry, as his AW systems suddenly picked up the mass of lifesigns rushing to their position. The rest of SG1 had picked up on it as well, mindful that this could have just been a trap, and had left their AW's on lifesign scan.

Harry rushed to a thick tree and aimed in the direction the lifesigns were coming from, Sam, Daniel and Jack doing the same. Teal'C had grabbed his fellow Jaffa pushed him into cover, who was clearly bewildered about what was going on, until the first bright orange bolts of staff plasma started to pepper their area.

Blue PR8 plasma bolts were returned in answer from SG1.

Harry fired alternating bursts at the enemy Jaffa that were steadily advancing on their position – there were an awful lot of them. Their sensors counted fifteen of the bastards. He managed to fell three Jaffa in the chaotic firefight in thirty seconds. They next tried a flanking, but Harry managed to dodge both trees and staff blasts to cut the attempt off, killing the two Jaffa attempting it. It was at that moment that the Jaffa were suddenly flanked.

A virtual storm of staff blasts erupted from a thick bush to the right of the Jaffa and cut them down like death's scythe had suddenly materialized and struck them all dead. Harry noted the new group of lifesigns suddenly on his eyepiece and rushed back to rejoin the others at his original starting point…careful to remain behind cover. Despite the apparent helping hand, it didn't mean that their saviours were of the friendly variety.

"More rebel Jaffa?" Jack whispered into his team com link.

The silence that had fallen on the small battlefield was deafening and smoke still hung in the air from burned vegetation due to stray plasma fire.

"There is only one way to be certain." Teal'C replied into the link. "**Shel kek nem ron!" **He shouted the last towards the position of the dozen new lifesigns. There was no response, and only yet more silence, but footsteps were heard and two lifesigns approached. The team's PR8s were ready and aimed as two smallish shadows appeared, then from the smoke emerged two female Jaffa, deactivated staff weapons at in their hands. They wore no armour but tight leathers with no sleeves and seemed to be designed to allow more for stealth and fast movement than protection.

"Warriors of the Tau'ri, we mean you no harm." The female Jaffa in question was dark skinned and stared plainly at them – Harry sensed no lie. More figures emerged…every single one of them, _female_. Jaffa women were not used in offensive campaigns. They only bore more Jaffa, served in the temples in religious roles, but were trained in battle to defend their worlds should it come down to it. Of course, as Jaffa, they were generally larger than your average human female. "Please, come with us."

Harry, Sam, and Daniel looked to Jack, who merely frowned in consideration at this request. The sound of a passing Death Glider reached them and Jack immediately turned his head skyward to see the curving fighter fly over the canopy of the wood.

"**Shak krek tel kree**." She muttered and another female Jaffa, this one pale and a severe expression on her face ran forward to the fallen body of Ryk'l, who had taken a staff blast directly on the chest and had seemingly run directly into the no man's land of the firefight.

"What happened Teal'C?" Harry whispered.

"Ryk'l admitted that he was forced to lead us into an ambush, and died as he wished," Teal'C rumbled.

"The Stargate will not be accessible for long. We must hurry." The leader of the female Jaffa said urgently.

They watched as the female Jaffa pushed her hand into Ryk'l symbiote pouch and retrieved the squirming immature Goa'uld from it and placed it in a canopic jar of sorts.

"What is she doing?" Daniel asked in astonishment.

"There is no time to explain here. Please, come with us."

"**Kel ma lek**?" inquired the pale woman in askance, returning to her leader and putting the jar in a leather bag, slung around her shoulder.

"**Cree shak nel**." The Leader argued with her sister Jaffa .

"They're outsiders."

"They are SG-1 of the Tau'ri," the leader retorted.

"Hey, what's goin' on?" Jack asked pointedly of Teal'C.

"This one believes we should return to her planet. That one does not believe it will be wise."

"Please...we knew you'd be here." The leader revealed in a clear gesture of trust.

"How?" Teal'C narrowed his eyes at her.

"Our intelligence network runs deep with in the Jaffa of Moloc. We came to ask for help. I promise you will be safe."

"Well, they did save us to a degree..." Daniel admitted.

"If they're rebels we have to help, Jack," Harry said pointedly.

"Lead the way," Jack nodded to the female Jaffa in charge.

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A trip through the Stargate later, the four Terrans, Teal'C, and the female Jaffa emerged onto another world. The area around the gate was mostly grassland with clumps of trees dotted here and there; it almost reminded Harry of central England. Their greeting party consisted out of yet more female Jaffa, two of whom were on horseback. The Terrans had hardly stepped out of the vortex range of the Stargate when the leader and her group turned as one to face them.

"Welcome to **Hak'tyl**, my name is Mila," she said. Jack eyed Daniel pointedly for a translation.

"Independence?" Daniel posited to Teal'C, since it was his native language after all.

"Liberation," countered the Jaffa stoically, staring inscrutably at the assembled female Jaffa.

"Our dwellings are this way," she gestured vaguely to the east.

"Ah, you know," objected Jack. "We should really let the folks back home know where we are. It's past our curfew."

"By all means," Mila nodded in a clear gesture of good faith. Jack merely gave a glance at Sam, who nodded and hurried off to the DHD to establish a wormhole to Terra.

"Why have we brought them here?" asked the severe female Jaffa of Mila. Clearly this Jaffa did not enthuse at their presence at all. Harry could sense her fierce stubborn pride a mile away.

"Because that was our mission," retorted Mila easily.

"Why was I not told?" She asked as the Gate started to be activated again.

"Because we knew you'd object." Mila nodded. "Go ahead and tell Ishta of our success." The prideful Jaffa clenched her jaw and instantly walked away from the group. Mounting one of the horses behind one of her fellow Jaffa already in the saddle, the horse whined as it turned on the spot and galloped off into the distance.

Harry pondered the leadership dynamic of these female Jaffa as the wormhole was established and Jack gave a status report to General Hammond. The man's response was a cautious 'go-ahead', and the wormhole was cancelled.

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The walk to the Jaffa camp was a fair distance from the Gate; clearly they didn't want a chance patrol to easily stumble upon them. They group had been walking up and down hills for nearly seven kilometres when they finally spotted the distant hut-like tents nestled between a copse of trees and for even further natural concealment was positioned in a small valley.

"So, Teal'c...who are they?" Jack eyed the nearest women, careful to keep his voice low so only the Terrans could hear.

"My knowledge of the Goa'uld, Moloc, is limited. However, I am unaware of any Goa'uld that would permit his women Jaffa to be warriors." Teal'C explained with a raised eyebrow.

"They seem to be well trained." Daniel said earnestly.

"All females receive training. They are expected to defend their home world with their lives when their men are called to battle."

"Can't help but think of the ancient Greek Amazon mythos." Daniel smirked.

"Yes, me too..." Jack grinned good-naturedly in return.

"They were, um, female warriors who, occasionally...captured men from other tribes in order to mate with them. They would often, um...would sometimes remove their right breast so they could more easily fire a bow and arrow."

"I see neither bow nor arrow..."

"No."

"Wait...you don't suppose that's why they want us, do you? I mean, you know, the four of us?"

"Get your mind out of the gutter, Jack," Harry shook his head with a bemused grin. "Jaffa society is rather insular, and as far as I know it's forbidden to take a human as a spouse." Teal'C nodded in confirmation.

"Though it has happened, it is very rare, such things are obviously kept secret," the big Jaffa said.

They finally entered the camp outskirts; it was literally filled with Jaffa women and children, all of whom were girls as well. Harry pondered what circumstances could've forced this sort of 'rebellion' to form within the ranks of a Goa'uld's Jaffa, and he didn't like what his mind concluded. He could see and sense a lot of the girls were very shy and frightened at their presence, not to mention shocked. Harry gave a non-verbal cue to Jack and after a moment's hesitation SG1 removed their AW helmets.

Mila nodded in the clear reciprocal gesture of trust. "You must forgive them," she said, indicating the children, "for many of the young. This is the first time they've seen men."

They were further escorted to a tent near the centre of the 'village' and a Jaffa woman emerged. Harry was inwardly shocked; she was quite beautiful, if she'd been born on Earth she would've had to beat Hollywood and Model Agencies off with a stick. She had the classic high cheekbones, full naturally pouting lips, smouldering hazel eyes with long ash blonde hair that was tied in a traditional braid that kept it out of her face, a strong curvy body covered in well made fabrics and leathers that seemed well adapted to the rigours of Jaffa life. The only possible negative about her appearance was her rather pale skin, indicating that she didn't spend much time outdoors.

"This is Ishta, our leader, and Neith, who you met earlier," introduced Mila.

Ishta moved down the steps of her tent dwelling, and the fiercely prideful Jaffa woman, finally given a name followed behind her. Jack began to speak but Harry again gave him an innocent looking non-verbal cue. It translated to 'Zip it'. Like it or not, this was First Contact, and this meant Harry called the shots and would speak for them. Ishta first approached Teal'C, and looked at him appraisingly. She seemed to take in his Terran AW armour, and the fact that he carried only the PR8 and the back-up Zat in a leg holster.

"Teal'c...of Chulak...former first prime of Apophis. The Shol'va who has become a legend, and seemingly is now of the Tau'ri."

"I am no legend. I fight as any true-hearted Jaffa for the freedom that we deserve, as the Tau'ri now do across the Galaxy to free their descendants." Teal'C bowed his head slightly and Ishta returned the gesture of respect. "This is Ambassador Potter, Daniel Jackson, Major Carter and Colonel O'Neill."

Ishta nodded at them, giving each an appraising look. Finally, "I have asked you here so that I may propose an alliance."

"Terra would welcome a relationship between our peoples that would bring about the end of the Goa'uld…" Harry began but was astonished when Teal'C interrupted him in a rather angry tone, whilst staring at Ishta.

"I apologize, Ambassador, but there can be no alliance between the Tau'ri and those who would steal symbiotes from their brother and leave him to die." That was from the heart and it meant Harry wouldn't necessarily have to reprimand Teal'C for interfering, not to mention that they were dealing with his people at the moment.

"He was no brother of mine," Neith snarled angrily, "just a murderer of innocent children..."

"**Shel Kree**!" Ishta snapped. The Jaffa version of 'Shut Up'. Neith immediately stopped her rant but her anger was practically tangible and the tension in the air from the Jaffa women around them was very high. "There is much to discuss." Ishta gestured for a curious young girl hiding behind one of the adults to come forward. "This is Syn'ac. This morning she lay on her death bed. She reached the age of **Prata** three days ago."

"Puberty," Daniel immediately translated for Jack and Sam.

"Without the symbiote we procured this morning, she would be dead now." Ishta said grimly and gestured for another girl, this one slightly younger. "This is Nesa, younger sister to Neith. She is next to reach the age. Without a symbiote, she will die...as will all our children."

"That we can most certainly help with," Harry grinned with a slight bow of his head.

**Ishta' Tent**

Harry sat Indian style on the carpeted floor, with Sam next to him, Ishta, Neith and Mala was across from them as Ishta began the tale of Hak'tyl. The Jaffa had initially only wanted Sam to come in, but the Major had insisted that Harry be included due to the fact that he needed to hear it from the 'horses' mouth' so to speak, and that he had the plenipotentiary power to speak for Terra in any alliance negotiation.

"Thirty years ago, Moloc decreed that only male children would be allowed to live. Only they could strengthen his armies and lead him to victory in the war of the gods." Ishta said stoically, her eyes spoke volumes of pain and heartache to Harry.

"Well, aside from the obvious immorality, that doesn't make sense. How do you sustain a population of any gender without women?" Sam asked in angered astonishment.

"The Jaffa lifespan is longer than humans. This could go on for a hundred years. Any female child is to be sacrificed in the ceremony of fire, immediately after they are born."

"They're burned to death?" Sam asked, now fully angered. Harry closed his eyes and sent quick prayer for all the souls so cruelly denied passage into the Universe.

"Yes." Ishta nodded, looking pained.

"So how did you start bringing them here?" Sam asked after taking a few calming breaths.

"As a temple high priestess, part of my duty is to keep record of births...and to preside over the ceremony of fire itself. I could not sit back and watch my sisters be murdered and do nothing. As high priestess, I, along with my seconds, Mala and Neith, are allowed relatively free access to the Chappa'ai of the worlds under Moloc's rule."

"No one outside this camp knows you're doing this?" Sam was clearly worried about the possibility that Moloc would eventually find out.

"No. Our duties require that we attend to missionary matters on various planets." Ishta explained.

"So you offer the parents of these children a chance for their daughters to live."

"All but a few Jaffa under Moloc worship him religiously. Not even the parents can be trusted. The children have to be spirited away, secretly, for fear we'd be reported to the imperial guard." Ishta replied wearily.

"It is punishable by death to even question the laws of a god." Mala said, showing her own first hints of anger.

"Over the moons we have succeeded in saving many from their birthright of death."

"So you want our help to overthrow Moloc?" Sam questioned curiously. Harry internally winced at that, Sam wasn't thinking long term, and he couldn't blame her really. He also had his own anger at this depredation that the Goa'uld was committing; he honoured and respected both his wives, and they were in some respects much more capable then he was. From that basis he would be the first to support an assassination of Moloc, and would volunteer to do it himself. But the current state of affairs in the war made that a problem.

Ishta was clearly surprised at Sam's assertion of their intentions. "We may have underestimated you."

"We've assassinated Goa'uld's before," Sam stated matter-of-factly.

"Moloc is powerful and his armies are vast," Ishta clearly didn't have high hopes any such thing would be possible.

"Killing Moloc, would certainly satisfy the vast majority of women here," Harry spoke up for the first time. "And for that matter, would satisfy any Tau'ri male, were they to hear of this atrocity. However, in a strategic sense, it makes no sense to kill Moloc. If it were to happen, another Goa'uld were merely take his place…and in the current state of affairs, that would no doubt be Ba'al – who has at the moment, a slight upper-hand against the System Lords. Should he incorporate Moloc's forces into his own…"

"I understand your position, Ambassador," Ishta nodded. "In any event, our immediate goals are less ambitious."

"It is an ongoing struggle to procure the symbiotes needed for our young to survive. We've lost many of our warriors in these raids. It has been said your weapons are formidable." Neith stated, for the first time not sounding hostile, but actually somewhat respectful.

"We also require sustenance. Food and supplies among our growing population are scarce."

"We are proud warriors. We offer you our services and our knowledge in return. We have an extensive intelligence network among the Jaffa under Moloc." Ishta offered.

"Food and Weapon supplies can be easily arranged," Harry nodded. "But we can also offer you an alternative that will mean you will never have to go symbiote hunting ever again."

"What alternative?" Ishta asked with a frown.

"Terra, with the help of some of our allies, has produced an 'artificial symbiote'," Harry gestured to his own abdomen where a Jaffa pouch would be. "It is placed inside the symbiote pouch, where it produces a substance and releases it into your bloodstream, which gives the same health benefits as a larval symbiote. It has an estimated life-time of fifty standard years, using both a liquid naquadah cell and heat energy from your own body as a power source. Barring illness and injury a Jaffa will only need four artificial symbiotes over his or her lifetime, instead of twenty Goa'uld symbiotes.

Ishta looked rather astonished at her two subordinates then turned back to the two Terrans. "Such a thing is possible?"

"Indeed," nodded Harry seriously. "Teal'C already carries one within him to no detrimental effect, as does five others in the Jaffa rebellion, who've lost their symbiotes due to injuries sustained in battle and even in one case it helped a Jaffa Master who became too old to carry a normal symbiote."

Istha and the others looked at each other again, communicating silently. "I need time to consider this."

"Then we will take our leave for the moment," Harry nodded, easily rising to his feet, bowing to Ishta, walking first out of the tent and waiting for Sam, clearly showing his own opinion on male/female issues to the women in the tent.

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"Tretonin Synthesisers?" Daniel asked after Harry and Sam had briefed them on their discussion with Ishta.

"We've had success with it," Harry pointed out.

"On all of five Jaffa in the whole Rebellion, their snakes had to be killed in combat before they agreed to it," Jack countered.

"It won't be easy," admitted Sam. "Jaffa won't willingly give up their symbiotes, despite the fact that it will ultimately free them."

"Jaffa believe they will be weaker without them," Teal'C said.

"Centuries of Goa'uld brainwashing…" Daniel shook his head in disagreement.

"Will these women do it?" Jack asked, bottom lining the issue.

"They're thinking about it. They've suffered some horrible atrocities at the hands of the Jaffa who serve Moloc. It's easy to see why they don't have a problem killing a few of them to survive." Sam explained intently.

"A Jaffa is taught that it's nobler to die than to kill another," Teal'C's tone weighed heavy with criticism.

"Teal'c...these children have been genetically altered to depend on symbiotes and then had all access to them taken away. Their guardians believe this is the only way for them to survive."

"Then they will have to see there is another way," the big Jaffa said with determination and walked off in the direction Ishta had gone.

Jack called to his buddy's back. "Give 'em the old Teal'C charm…"

The decision had taken most of the afternoon for Ishta, even after Teal'C had apparently spoken to her. But soon enough she had called for an assembly of every female Jaffa on Hak'tyl.

"No longer will we need to lose our sisters in battle. No longer will our daughters be dependant on symbiotes. Teal'c...has the device within him now. He stands here before you as evidence. I am asking for four volunteers to travel with me to the Tau'ri homeworld to test its effectiveness." Ishta declared to the large assemblage of over six hundred women and children.

Seconds passed with pure silence from the crowd and no one stepping forward.

"Is that a pin dropping?" muttered Jack sarcastically. Finally, near the front of the crowd, Mila stepped forward.

"You must not go."

"Mala, I have made my decision," retorted Ishta.

"Hak'tyl needs you. You are our leader. I will go in your stead. It is my right as **Kin'dra**. You cannot say no." Kin'dra was the Jaffa equivalent of 2IC.

"You are brave and true," Ishta nodded in respect, accepting the decision. At that point another tall Jaffa woman stepped forward.

"I too will go." She declared and it was the impetuous for two more to seemingly make up their minds as well, as they too stepped forward. Ishta smiled at them. Then turned to Neith, who would not meet her eyes. Nesa was standing next to her older sister.

"Nesa is of the age…" Ishta began saying, clearly also intending for her to join the group travelling to Terra to get a TS device implanted.

"She is a child," Neith immediately objected hotly.

"I'm told it's not without risk…but if there is one among us…"

"Never! That you would even consider this is an affront to all of us." Neith snarled.

"Your words are disrespectful."

Neith regained her composure and led Nesa away. Harry sighed; _there's always one of them in a group_.

"I cannot force her hand," Ishta shook her head sadly and turned to the four volunteers. "I wish you well."

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**SGC, Earth**

Harry, Jack and Sam, with the four female Jaffa volunteers emerged from the Earth Stargate and walked down the ramp to be greeted by General Hammond.

"Dr Jackson? Teal'C?" The man was clearly wondering where the two were.

"As Teal'c would say, undomesticated equines couldn't drag him away," was Jack's amused reply.

"The leader of the Hak'tyl wanted to learn more about the rebel Jaffa. We figured we could send updates on the progress of the TS treatment to Daniel through the MALP." Sam explained.

The General nodded and turned to the four Jaffa. "I'm General Hammond. Welcome to Earth." Mala and her fellow bowed in turn and followed Sam. Harry was about to head to the Armory, when Hammond held him back for a moment.

"Ambassador, I've received a call from the STO, they've been apprised of the situation regarding the Anti-matter research, and are requesting a status report on when production can begin."

Harry winced recalling the nightmarish race against time running through Rome, looking for the clues that would lead to the location of the Anti-Matter that had been stolen from CERN, not to mention battling against the powerful Hassassin. "It's merely a matter of going back and starting the procedures over again, however we can't use it for mass production solely for the STO Fleet. The world knows about Anti-Matter and CERN is up to its ears in requests from various governments and power companies to license the technology out. The _Tranquility _LHC (Large Hadron Collider) on Luna is almost finished anyway, so we might as well not even bother using CERN to produce our Anti-Matter."

"Very well, I'll relay that to General Thompson," nodded Hammond, and they traded casual salutes before Harry headed out of the Gate Room.

**SGC Infirmary**

Two days had passed and all four Jaffa women had their immature Goa'uld Symbiotes removed (which was placed in artificial nurturing tanks) and implanted with Tretonin Synthesizers. There was a problem though. As with any new form of medical treatment, it reacted differently to different people due to their natural unique physiologies. And to make matters even worse, it was Mala who was not responding to the Tretonin's effect.

"Mala's the only one not responding. Her white blood cell count is way down. If this keeps up she'll go into sepsis." Dr Frasier reported to Harry and Sam, they were on the other side of the ward so that Mala wouldn't overhear.

"What can you do?" Sam asked.

"Continue to increase the Tretonin levels being produced by the implant. But she's already at double the doses of the others. I want to put her in isolation."

"What about Healing?" Harry said thoughtfully, scratching his chin.

"We still don't know why the Tretonin isn't working," Janet shook her head. "Until our tests are complete, I'm not going to meddle with her body. But I think we must be prepared for the possibility that we won't be able to do anything to help her…we had no guarantees going in. Some would say a ninety percent success rate isn't bad in a trial like this."

"Not in the minds of the Jaffa," Sam said ominously.

"We're not done yet," Janet was firm in her conviction. "If it's within our power, we'll do it."

"We need this to work."

"I know." Janet didn't need anyone to explain the stakes involved.

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Of course, it didn't take long for Mala to get wise to her situation. If her being moved into the Isolation Ward and the nurses and doctors with breathing filters over their faces didn't do it, her rapidly deteriorating condition was plainly felt.

"You've moved me away from the others because you did not wish to frighten them," she told Harry.

"No," he shook his head, also wearing a slim filter mask – its diaphragm contracting and expanding with each breath he took. "Your body is not adapting to the Tretonin your implant is producing. You're more susceptible to infection."

"How are the others responding?" Mala asked, impressing Harry with her fortitude and selflessness, it was at last to him clear why she was Ishta's 2IC.

"Very well," he nodded. "They had no complications." An alarm suddenly sounded from the medical holoscreen hovering above Mala's bed. "Janet!" He jumped away to make room for the Doctor and her two nurses rushing over to attend to the stricken Jaffa; who was having clear trouble breathing. A single glance at the screen told everyone the problem…low blood pressure – only sixty over forty.

"Give her an Avolis," Janet ordered immediately. The nurse rapidly loaded an injection gun and a moment later the medicine was forced into Mala's carotid artery. A few moments passes as Janet and everyone stares at the changing medical readouts, which began to climb back out of danger levels. Mala's breathing was still labored.

'_Perhaps replacing the symbiote is an option'_ he ventured to Egeria.

'_No, at this point, and looking at her scans, I think the Tretonin still in her system will start attacking the symbiote…the stress of the battle on the body will kill her…_' the Tok'ra within him explained.

'_Damn, it's so obvious…how did I miss that?_' he mentally groused. _'So she dies either way…unless the Tretonin will get off its ass and start attacking the correct bad guys…'_

'_That's it!'_ Egeria exclaimed in astonishment. '_You're brilliant, Harry._'

'_Well, thank you, but I see where you're going with this…_' he nodded mentally at the Tok'ra Queen.

"Janet, I know the reason why it's not working." He said to Doctor now making notes on a clipboard.

"What? Oh, why then?"

"The Tok'ra in making the Tretonin catered to broad spectrum of Jaffa physiology out there, but Janet, given how many different planets and environmental conditions Jaffa are born in, out in the great big Galaxy, it's inevitable that we'd run into a Jaffa genetic subset that rejects the Tretonin."

"Of course!" Janet exclaimed angrily, slapping her own thigh in self-recrimination. "I'm so Earth-bound that environmental and genetic drift factors hardly ever enter my thinking. We'd need to do a DNA profile on Mala and alter her Tretonin to cater for it. But she doesn't have the time…"

"You're forgetting we have the best genetic specialists in two Galaxies on the planet next door," grinned Harry.

"But can the Asgard help? The Protected Planets Treaty…"

"The little guys have been harping at me recently to get them something more productive to do against the Goa'uld than just patrolling and showing the flag, and besides it's not as if the System Lords will ever hear of it."

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A call over subspace to Mars later; saw an Asgard medical team and their equipment, led by Heimdall beaming directly into the Infirmary. Harry and Janet explained the situation in more detail, their conclusions about Mala's genetic diversity being the cause behind the rejection of the Tretonin. Heimdall held an Asgard medical device of some sort over the Jaffa, and above one of the pieces of equipment a curving blue holograph screen jumped into existence. It began scrolling huge amounts of data rendered in Asgard. Heimdall and her four fellows immediately congregated around it, and began speaking to each other rapidly in the resonant Asgard language.

Harry watched with rapidly growing concern, even if they could make necessary modification to the Tretonin while Mala was still alive, he doubted the stuff would have enough time to make a difference before she died. It was literally a race against time.

One of the Asgard nodded subtly, then abruptly vanished with a white flash, presumably up to their ship in orbit. Heimdall came over whilst the others began to rapidly manipulate the control jewels on their data terminal.

"We have reached consensus on the modification to the Tretonin," Heimdall announced to Janet and Harry. "We cross-referenced Mala's DNA as belonging to a specific mutation of the Jaffa genome usually encountered on worlds with a specific form of solar radiation, using Terran terms, the specific radiation encountered in F class star systems."

"How long will the modification take?"

"Twenty Terran minutes," Harry's former teacher replied. "I should warn you that her chances for survival will still be very low. There is a chance that the modified Tretonin will simply kill her – since there have been no simulations or trials done on the effectiveness of it."

"We know," Janet nodded gloomily.

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In the end, their efforts were for nought. The modified Tretonin had simply not had enough time to do its job before Mala's body shut down from the strain – she died eight hours later. The only silver lining was that her death would save countless other Jaffa who would receive the implant. The STO ruled that mandatory genetic testing had to be done before any Jaffa would receive Tretonin. The Asgard also offered to begin making Tretonin variants based on their genome records on Jaffa physiology.

The impact of Mala's death was felt on Hak'tyl. It caused Neith to challenge Ishta to Jomo Secu – the Jaffa challenge of leadership. Neith had become convinced because of the blossoming romance between Teal'C and Ishta (Harry had been quite surprised to hear of it – and joined Jack in a bit of manly jealousy), that she was no longer fit to lead Hak'tyl. Not to mention that she had got it in her head that a Jaffa's strength came from their symbiotes.

Harry didn't know how Neith could've thought she could beat Ishta. The High Priestess had over forty years of experience on the prideful woman. Neith owed her continued existence to Teal'C, who had managed to stay Ishta's hand with reason when the time for the killing blow had come. Of course, as proven many times before, if things can go wrong, they will go wrong. News of Mala's death reached Hak'tyl just as the duel was concluding, sending Ishta into a rage and ordering a raid to procure the symbiote necessary for Nesa to survive.

Nesa had finally reached Prata, and when her childhood immune system had stopped functioning, she was on her deathbed. The whole situation was resolved not through battle, or science, but through the stubborn will of a little girl to be free of her birthright of enslavement. Nesa refused any symbiote taken from another Jaffa at the expense of their life. And instead chose to be taken to Earth to receive the implant.

Neith was of course, furious beyond belief, but she didn't have much say in the matter…as she had been wounded in the aborted attempt to procure a symbiote, and as irony would have it, her own symbiote had died as a result…she would need the implant, and again proved her stubbornness and misplaced pride when she refused it.

Nesa, who was showing no signs of rejecting her implant, saved the day again. Her older sister accused her of betrayal. "No. You betrayed me." Nesa retorted. "Since before I can remember, you have taught me to believe in our freedom. You said that you would do anything so that you might protect. One day I will be a great warrior like you, but I am not yet. I still need you. I have chosen to live free. You must choose to take the implant if you are to continue to teach and protect me. Please, I do not wish you to die."

_Who could say no to that?_ especially coming from one's baby sister.

**SGC Gateroom**

The Jaffa women from Hak'tyl; Ishta, Neith, Nesa and the last Jaffa woman who had needed an implant stood opposite Harry and SG1 as the Stargate began to rapidly dial in the coordinates to their home.

"Will you come to visit?" Nesa asked innocently to Daniel. Harry had to smother a grin at the crush he was sensing coming from the young girl. The archaeologist simply grinned and gave a nod.

Neith seemed to feel the big sisterly need to tease. "My sister's developed quite an affection for you."

Nesa was of course horribly embarrassed and elbowed her sister in irritation. "Neith," she whispered in a tone of complaint. Even Teal'C couldn't resist showing a smile at the strong blush adorning Nesa's face.

"We are grateful to our new friends. On behalf of the Hak'tyl, I'd like to express our thanks." Ishta began the formal part of the send-off.

"Our medical teams will be checking in on a regular basis. Be sure to take note of any symptoms that could a side effect of the tretonin," Harry instructed and bowed formally to them.

"You have trained us well in the implant's functions," Ishta and the others bowed in return. "The medicine, supplies and weaponry will also go a long way."

"Well, if there's anything else you need, anything, just give us a call. Send us an email," grinned Jack in his usual lack of diplomatic flair.

"Just that not so many moons go by before we see you again," Ishta said locking a smoldering gaze with Teal'C and stepping into his embrace before engaging in a rather passionate bout of kissing, as the wormhole established itself.

"Oh, don't worry; I'm sure we'll be in…" Jack said before noticing that Ishta was not addressing him and raised an eyebrow at the liplocked pair, "…touch." Harry, Daniel and Sam gave each other amused glances before heading out of the Gateroom, whilst the Jaffa walked through the Gate to give the two lovers their relative privacy. Harry paused at the door to the main corridor and longingly thought of Hermione in Atlantis and Apollonia on Seaworld…

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**Puddle Jumper 1, High Orbit of a Wraith Homeworld, Pegasus Galaxy**

'_I knew I should've taken those unarmed combat courses more seriously_,' Major John Sheppard groaned to himself through a haze of pain as he sat against the rear bulkhead door of the Jumper. The pain lancing from his broken arm and ribs suddenly spiked and it was enough to drive all thought from his head for a few moments. When he could think again and the pain subsided, Teyla Emmagan – looking rather awkward yet very striking in the standard Terran chromesuit hovered over him in concern.

Seeing her allowed him to remember why he asked for her to be on his team. He had read enough SG1 mission reports to know that sure disaster had been averted on many occasions because of the Jaffa Teal'C's firsthand knowledge of the enemy and the Galaxy in general – the way John figured it, he needed something similar.

"There must be something we can do for him," she stated to Rodney Mckay, who also in a chromesuit, but with blue colored shoulder piping to indicate his STO Science affiliation. There was another choice that John felt was a dead right for his team. Mckay's bravery in saving Atlantis from the Energy leech accidentally released by Jinto after the Athosian boy had gotten lost in one of Atlantis' abandoned labs. Mckay had put on an Alteran personal shield and walked directly into the energy mass of the creature to fling a Naquadah generator through the wormhole, luring it through and saving the city's power from being gobbled up. And again SG1 mission reports influenced his choice, Major Carter; the SGC's top Astrophysicist had also save the day on many occasions.

"There's an emergency first aid kit behind the pilot's seat." Mckay hurriedly explained. Teyla nodded and headed towards the forward compartment of the Jumper where Markham and Stackhouse, two Marines who were slightly out of their element, were sluggishly piloting the Jumper towards the Spacegate. John groaned again, damn bureaucratic paper pushers; the request for former heli pilots had still not come through. Markham barely had a few hours of training in the Jumper that everyone had recently taken just in case and it painfully showed. Lieutenant Aiden Ford, the 2IC of John's new team, was standing behind the two Marines.

"How we doing?" Ford asked.

"I think we've got it lined up pretty close," Markham replied anxiously. John from all the way in the rear compartment could see the Spacegate seemingly crawling closer at a snail pace. He knew it was an optical illusion, but it still made him want to scream in frustration to go faster. He wanted nothing more now than the sweet release of medical grade painkillers, whilst the Docs healed him.

"No such thing as close. You thread the needle or we're dead," Ford stated firmly to the two non-com Marines.

"All right." Markham nodded seeming to steel himself and focus his mind entirely on piloting.

"Ok, you can do it. Nice and easy." Ford encouraged and turned to Mckay, "Okay, I think we're close enough to dial the Gate."

"Yes! Yes! Just hurry up and get us back." Mckay snapped, grabbed the medkit from Teyla and opened it. Stackhouse began to punch in coordinates in the integrated DHD, _finally_ the Spacegate sprang to life with an outgoing wormhole. The scientist pulled out a silver Healing device and threaded through his fingers. John saw it happening, his left arm snapped out to grab a hold of Mckay.

"You know how to use that thing?" grumbled John through the pain.

"I'm not going to heal you; I would have no clue where to start, relieving some of the pain, however, that is basic science."

John glared for a moment at the scientist and let go, indicating his assent. Mckay hovered his equipped hand over John's broken arm, and the device lit up with an odd, ethereal blue light.

"Atlantis Base, this is Ford. Jumper 1 is inbound with a medical emergency. Please respond." The LT initiated his suit's subspace link and GDO.

"Confirmed Jumper 1, med teams are en route, who is injured?"

"Major Sheppard."

Moments passed and soon General Theron's voice entered the Jumper. "_What is the nature of Sheppard's injury?"_

"Broken bones mostly, some of which are ribs," Ford explained; he didn't need elaborate on why broken ribs were dangerous.

"_Understood, Lieutenant_. _Gate room is clear for your arrival_."

John could feel some of Mckay's efforts had paid off as the pain was slowly dulling. He looked past him to see the event horizon of the Spacegate looming large through the forward viewport, and the puddle start to swallow up the Jumper, it was the last thing he felt as the whole world seemed to shake. Mckay and Teyla were flung off their feet and he himself felt inertia suddenly grabbing at his body, forcing him to bend over…there was spike of unending, indescribable pain…then darkness.

8888888888888888888888888888

When John woke next, he was still in the same position in the back of the Jumper, but an indescribably weird sight greeted him. Teyla was rummaging through the first aid kit near him, but that wasn't odd, it's what was beyond her that was odd.

"Hi Teyla," he mumbled. She looked up and came over to his side. "Are you all right?"

"I'm fine." The Athosian woman said with an undertone of anxiousness.

"Something tells me we haven't made it to Atlantis yet." He said in a mock light-hearted tone.

"No."

"Ford?" The LT came over and kneeled down next to him. "What is the event horizon doing there?" Ford looked over his shoulder at the frothing wall of water-like plasma that neatly bisected the Jumper just beyond the inner bulkhead door.

"We're stuck in the Gate, sir."

"You mean my day just got worse?" John grimaced.

"We're going with the assumption that it was one or both of the drive pods. I don't know whether it was mechanical failure or…" Mckay explained, tapping hurriedly on a TabletPC.

"…or it was damaged as we tried to take off." Ford finished for him.

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_The Jumper seemed to struggle into air as three Wraith warrior drones fired on it. John groaned from the impacts that jostled his broken arm and ribs. _

"_We're taking fire. Let's get some altitude!" he shouted at the two Marines at the controls._

"_I'm trying, sir!" shouted Markham frantically, gritting his teeth in concentration._

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"There's no way of knowing, really, but ah, if you know of some way of manually retracting the mechanism…" Mckay asked lightly.

"Cockpit, on the left." John grimaced.

"The cockpit is regrettably demolecularized at the moment. But how about somewhere back here?"

"No," John said sadly.

"No. I didn't think so. Well, if you'll excuse me, I'll be a foot and a half over there, taking some readings, feel free to talk amongst yourselves." The scientist said wryly and resumed his work with the Tablet.

"How long until the wormhole shuts down?" John turned to Ford.

"We have less than thirty minutes, sir."

"Oh, just great." John sighed leaning his head back into the bulkhead.

88888888

**27 Minutes of Wormhole time remaining…**

Rodney Mckay wondered how on Earth he'd let himself think it was a good idea to roped onto a field team, when he could be safely back in his lab on Atlantis working on the Hyperspace Jammer and any of the other numerous projects piling into his department. He could just close the door to his lab and keep all the other idiots out…

With that thought an idea hit him and he first consulted his diagnostic of the Jumper, before standing and hitting the button that controlled the inner bulkhead door. Unfortunately, everything went dark at that moment, since the light from the event horizon was cut off and the Jumper's internal lights had been damaged.

"Sorry, here," he switched on the portable lamp light that ran off a small naquadah cell and put it down near the Major.

"_Jumper one, this is Atlantis_." The voice of Peter Grodin, a reasonably proficient engineer in Mckay's humble opinion – though still an idiot – came over the subspace link.

"Still here."

"_We recommend closing the bulkhead door_." Mckay rolled his eyes in irritation, staring mockingly at the door in question.

"What else?" he asked flatly.

"_We're still working on the problem. We'll get back to you. Atlantis base out_."

"Thanks for calling!" Rodney mocked and turned to the others. "Anyone else claustrophobic or is it just me?"

"Why'd you close the door?" Ford asked in askance.

"So that when the Stargate shuts down and the forward section is severed, we're not sucked out helplessly into space and easy targets for the Wraith." Rodney explained carefully, trying mightily to keep his cynicism down, he didn't succeed much.

"Will it hold?"

"Like a screen door on a submarine, I just prefer dying by an energy weapon, than having my life force sucked out by a Wraith. It's a personal thing," Rodney began to feel his hackles rise.

"Our air is limited to two days, we have to ration it, meaning you really do have to calm down," Ford advised gravely.

"Yeah, yeah,…" he snarked.

"McKay…" Sheppard began.

"Then we're stuck in our suits drifting helplessly in space, and sitting ducks for the Wraith." Rodney snapped.

"Knock it off!" Sheppard barked in return, grimacing.

"Well, I apologize for being the only person who truly comprehends how screwed we are!"

"We're all in the same boat, and you probably don't have internal bleeding, so don't talk to me about screwed." Rodney felt his anger evaporate as he considered that, and a scraping sound of the hull against the Stargate reverberated in the compartment. "And let's not give up on Markham and Stackhouse either. There's plenty of time to solve this thing. But you've got to stop using your mouth and start using your brain."

"I'm sorry, Major." Rodney replied looking contrite. "I'm…I react to certain doom a certain way. It's a bad habit and…and…maybe there's a way to manually retract the mechanism."

"Yeah. Maybe there is."

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**24 Minutes of Wormhole Time remaining…**

Ford threaded the Healing device through his fingers and spoke into the com. "Dr Beckett you better talk me through this, I only have basic training in this thing."

"_All right, ou' first job is to make a prope' diagnosis_," the Scottish Chief of Atlantis Medicine explained. "Clear your mind, think of the mantra Dr Granger taught you, this is to make sure you don't send conflicting mental instructions to the device."

"Got it," nodded Ford, kneeling next to Major Sheppard, closing his eyes. '_Om Tare Tuttare Ture Svaha…Om Tare Tuttare Ture Svaha…'_ he began chanting within his mind, concentrating and yet not concentrating, embracing the Universe. When he felt that elusive state of serenity reached, he idly said, "And then?"

"_Scan the Major's ribs."_

Ford felt as if he was on autopilot as his hand with the Healing device reached up and with only a thought of '_Scan_', it activated and in front of his mind's eye a clear picture seemed to blossom of the Major's internal organs and ribs as if he had somehow mentally peeled away everything in the way…he clearly saw the broken ones, and moved his hand over the broken arm…the picture shifted.

'_Shut down'_. He thought, and declared over the com. "He's got two fractured ribs, and a third one which is a compound fracture, it's dangerously close to puncturing the Major's right lung. His right arm is also a compound fracture, and that is also very close to cutting the artery there."

"_Holy cra'p, Major ye canna move an inch, is that understood_?"

"Trust me, Doc, I'm not planning on it."

"_How on Earth did ye get so injured?"_

"Well, I was jumped by a wraith at close quarters, we got in a tussle, in the end I managed to break h..it's neck, but not before it left me with these souvenirs."

"I will teach you in the martial arts of my people, Major, until then I recommend you avoid such confrontations…" Teyla grinned wryly, covering her slight awe at the thought that the Major had nevertheless managed to physically defeat a wraith in hand to hand combat.

"Yeah, thanks."

888888

**19 Minutes Wormhole Time Remaining…**

Rodney Mckay had the rear crystal circuit panel open and was prodding methodically at each pathway with a adjustment diode connected to this Tablet, frantically trying to find the pathway responsible for controlling the mechanism to retract the Engine pods that was currently the reason for their being stuck within the circular Stargate.

"_Jumper one, this is Theron. Dr. Zelenka and Trebal have come up with something_." Theron reported. Rodney breathed a sigh of relief that the Czech scientist and the very attractive Alteran woman, and former first officer of the _Aurora_ – who was also a ship specialist – had come up with something.

"Zelenka. Why can I never remember that name?" mused Rodney absently, his head frantically trying to visualize the internal circuitry of the Jumper systems at the same time.

"They've positively identified the control systems on the port side of the jumper that retract the drive pods. I'm relaying the schematics to your datapad."

"Thank you, now we're getting somewhere." Rodney declared as he opened up the file just transmitted through the wormhole.

"What?" Ford asked for elaboration.

"Zelenka and Trebal have identified the control pathways to the engine pod, which means that's increasing my chances of fixing this from one in a million to one in a thousand, but, uh…it's something. General Theron?"

"_Yes?"_

"I'll only have seven to nine seconds to warn you if I accidentally trigger a catastrophic overload, so if I tell you to raise the gate shields…don't hesitate."

"_We're aware of the risk, Rodney. Do your best_."

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**15 Minutes until Wormhole shutdown**.

"_All right, son. You've shut down the nerves. Now I wan' ye to clear your mind again, but this time, imagine carefully and slowly pulling the cracked bones away from the artery."_

Ford took a deep breath, again clearing his mind and scanning with the Healing device until he got a clear look at the broken upper arm of Major Sheppard. Now that he could see it, he carefully visualized what he wanted to happen and reached out with his neophyte telekinesis. He saw the slightest of movement in the bones, and his emotion spiked…he abruptly withdrew, lest he pull out the entire bone.

"I'm trying again," he said taking deep breaths, shaking off emotion and latching onto a mantra to clear his mind again. He reached in again…and _pulled_… there was snapping sound. "Holy shit!" Ford gasped retreating back into his mind.

"_What? What's happened?"_

"I accidentally used a little too much force…but the bones have been set." Ford gasped, his heart suddenly going a mile a minute. "It doesn't look like there's any damage to the artery."

"_We might make a Doctor out of you yet, Lt_." Beckett's relieved laugh emerged over the link.

"I think I'll stick to killing wraith, Doctor," Ford breathed deeply to calm himself.

"_Nevertheless, well done._"

"Thanks," the Major said significantly. Ford nodded and pulled of the Healing device.

888888

**7 Minutes until Wormhole shutdown.**

"I'm only halfway through all the possible circuit pathways and time's almost up. We're never going to make it." Rodney said frantically, as he began tapping the diode even faster to each pathway.

"Just keep at it, there's still time." Ford insisted.

"All right, we should seal our chromesuits." Rodney said, his movements beginning to get even faster. "That way if we run out of time we can at least survive, until a rescue Jumper is sent through."

"That's not thinking of Markham and Stackhouse, not to mention the wraith when they discover that this Jumper is not what it seems. Work, Mckay!" snapped Sheppard, as the team's helmets materialized over their heads.

"Sorry." He mumbled.

"These suits can sustain us in space?" Teyla asked.

"For two days, yeah."

Time marched relentlessly forward, only marked by the beeping and frantic tapping of Rodney working on his TabletPC.

"_Rodney, we're down to two minutes._" Theron announced gravely.

"I know the time. I've still got over two dozen circuits I haven't tried."

"_Don't be so methodical, just pick one at random!"_

"If I do that, I run the risk of attempting to activate the same circuit twice."

"_Just do it!"_

"I'm telling you, there's no way I can…" He was interrupted with a sudden whine of smooth machinery as the drive pods retracted into the Jumper. Rodney checked the diagnostic to confirm. "I think I did it! General, I think the engine pod's retracted."

"_Hang on to your hats; you've shed all your inertia…_

"The drive shut down before we went through the Stargate. We've shed all our forward momentum." Rodney realized with a sinking feeling. He cursed himself for not thinking of it, but he'd been so frantic to work through the circuits that it had slipped his mind. Ford frantically turned around and shoulder charged the bulkhead in an effort to get some momentum. "You're wasting your time. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction."

All four of them looked at each other helplessly as the minute mark before shutdown was reached.

Suddenly the Jumper gave a lurch and slowly the event horizon crept into the rear compartment, Ford was swallowed by it first, and Rodney was still trying to grasp the impossibility of it, as he was dematerialized. John was the last one to enter, and finally the wormhole tunnel of Stargate travel became visible and…

…Jumper 1 emerged into the Atlantis Gate Room. Markham and Stackhouse shook their heads to clear it from the disorientation of remaining in the Stargate matter buffer for so long…

Finally, when the entirety of the Jumper was through, the wormhole shut down, with fifteen seconds to spare.

Rodney rushed through towards the forward compartment to see any sign of what had caused them to be pulled through, only to be astonished as he saw Dr Granger dressed in a chromesuit with purple shoulder pipings, standing at the top of the grand staircase, clutching a tall white staff with a glowing light coming from it.

A fierce expression of concentration was on her face.

"Ah, thank goodness somebody back here has some brains," he mumbled in relief.

"_Jumper One, welcome back_."

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"They're all gone?" Herodotus' tone was flat as he stood next to General Theron in her Command Office.

"We did a full recon of the planet, you said there were six Hive ships landed there, well, we counted six Hive ship sized craters," John reported grimly.

"They've left to begin culling worlds," Teyla shook her head, not wanting to comprehend the scale of the situation.

"If all six have left, then we can only assume that something similar is happening on all Wraith homeworlds," Trebal frowned, staring into the distance, seemingly in deep thought. "Why? They know not enough time has passed since the last great culling for their 'food' to have grown in sufficient number."

"I'm unsure of that myself," Herodotus scratched his chin. "Perhaps the wake-up signal was an automatic protocol. And we know enough of Wraith physiology to guess that they just can't go back into stasis after being woken."

"So they need their breakfast before going back in," John winced at the thought. "But with so many awake at one time…"

"There's not enough people to go around for all of them," General Theron's mouth thinned into a grim line. "Not if they don't want to wipe out their 'human herd' entirely. Then they'd be in real trouble down the road."

"So how does this affect our strategy?" Colonel McTavish asked, looking at the assembled upper echelon of Atlantis.

"I can see no reason for changing it, yet," Theron leaned on her desk. "We stay the course on our guerrilla campaign, but I think we might have to modify our plan with the Hyperspace Jammer…it will not only protect this planet. We'll need a mobile version as well that can be deployed on short notice. I think we also need to figure out a way to 'bury' a Stargate, without having to physically do it."

"That would require writing a special program based on the program code of the Stargate itself," Herodotus explained. "But it is possible."

"Good, we need this done people; a lot of lives are counting on us."

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**SGC Gateroom, Earth, Milky Way Galaxy**

Harry dressed in his Air Commodore BDUs stood next to Daniel, Sam and Hammond, staring at the active Earth Stargate, waiting for the team to come through. He had gotten an odd feeling in his mind ever since the communiqué from Teal'C and Bratac had come through and been spending the past half an hour trying to isolate why.

Finally with a wet slurp the four man SG team that had been sent to give backup to the two Jaffa emerged. Between them they were carrying a reinforced stretcher that looked like it was quite heavy, but it was something they managed with no problem.

The being on the stretcher, however, forced him to suppress a gasp of astonishment. It was roughly just over six and a half feet tall, covered partially in hard black armour over its vital areas and partially in a conforming tight-weave cloth almost resembling Kevlar in appearance at least. It also had a sinister looking helmet that completely covered its head, which was clearly designed for intimidation and protection. Over its forearms were gauntlets that, judging by the potential energy he could sense, were clearly weapons that made the energy in a staff weapon seem like an alkaline battery in comparison.

That feeling finally narrowed itself down in his mind as he finally realized it was his precognition that had been acting up, and then he sensed the nature of the being below him.

"What the hell happened out there?" Hammond demanded. Harry was startled out of his astonishment and horror whilst staring at the being, and looked up to see that Teal'C and Bratac had arrived and the being was set down on the floor in front of them.

"Our intelligence was correct. The summit between the Goa'uld Ramius and Tilgath did indeed take place. However when we had arrived, Ramius had already fled." Teal'C reported grimly.

"All those who remained had been slain, including Tilgath." Bratac continued, his entire demeanor screaming his weariness, as he leaned on his staff weapon.

"By this one man alone?" Hammond said incredulously, gesturing to the armored being.

"From the way he fought us, I do not doubt it."

"An Ashrak?"

"He was unlike any warrior we have previously encountered." Teal'C replied stoically, but his eyes were grave.

"Obviously, you were able to take him down?" Daniel frowned at the being as well, seemingly just as troubled as Harry was. Daniel's senses were nowhere near Harry's level, but they were more advanced than most, he just didn't have the thorough training and knowledge to make sense of what he seeing.

"He withstood the brunt of our weapons fire before succumbing," Teal'C reported, holstering his PR8 onto its catches on his AW's torso armor.

"Its armor must protect it from energy based weapons, not unlike our own. But I'm seeing no sign of external damage…even our AW armor will carbonize and shatter after three or four successive hits with a PR8. This means we're dealing with an entirely new technology." Sam explained, her eyes scanning the being's armor.

"And we believe this wasn't a set-up by Ramius to kill Tilgath?" Daniel asked.

"Ramius' Jaffa were equally as decimated. His First Prime said his master barely escaped alive." Bratac said earnestly.

"It's not a he or she for that matter," Harry stated, kneeling down and resting his hand on the helmet of the mystery warrior.

"What do you mean? Have you encountered such a thing before?" Hammond asked.

"No, but I know what I sense," Harry replied in answer, shaking his head. "We are _all_ in serious trouble."

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**SGC Infirmary Level**

Harry and Sam watched as the ominous looking dead warrior was slowly pulled headfirst into the MRI. Looking back to the readout screen, which would normally show the internal structure of anyone inside the machine, it only showed flickering static.

"Thought so," mused Harry. "The suit is absorbing all the magnetic fields. As long as it's wearing that armour we're not gonna get anything."

"Why don't we try some handheld scanners?" Sam posited.

"Any form of energy beam, even a scanner's beam, would meet with the same results." Harry shook his head. "No, we're going to have to do this the old fashioned way."

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"I kinda feel like I'm performing an autopsy on Darth Vader," Harry chuckled. Sam grinned and rolled her eyes in response to the wit and they got busy.

Both of them were now in chromesuits with its helmet on and various surgical tools laid out on gurneys. Getting the helmet off the warrior required foreceps and a bit of brute force, but was done easily. The moment the face plate separated from the rear of the helmet, there was a slight hiss as the interior of the suit equalized with the lower exterior air pressure.

"Clearly this thing can fight in variable atmospheres," he commented. Sam carefully pulled further and a cobweb-like gel substance tore and finally revealed the things face – which was ugly, white and translucent. Over its mouth and nose it had some form of breathing filtration device. Its eyes were open, grey and dull in death, but its skin looked hardly more consistent than gelatine.

"_Inferius_," Harry mumbled.

"What?" Sam asked curiously.

"I know who is responsible for this now."

888888

**SGC Briefing Room 1. Two days later…**

Harry stood near the holoscreen staring at the medical scans, which had finally been successful after the armour had been removed. It showed the upper head and neck of the warrior, and entwined over the spinal column…a Goa'uld symbiote. Teal'C and Bratac were seated on either side of General Hammond, listening intently, whilst Daniel was busy scribbling notes.

"It's a Goa'uld. Quite frankly, that's not as shocking as the host." Sam shook her head in near disbelief.

"How so?" Hammond asked.

"It has an incredibly unusual organ structure."

"Physiologically, the heart and lungs had to be abnormally large to supply enough blood and oxygen to its muscles. It's like someone tried to genetically engineer the perfect athlete without any concern for longevity." Harry said, turning back to face the conference table.

"Leaving it to the symbiote to sustain its life." Teal'C said thoughtfully with his fingers tented under his chin.

"An engineered host." Daniel shook his head in dismay.

"An extremely flawed one. Even a Goa'uld symbiote wouldn't be able to compensate for all the problems, it would eventually die under the pressure of having to maintain this form of host." Harry drummed his fingers on the table.

"The warrior's armor appears to possess some sort of advanced energy absorption technology. If it works the way I think it does, it wouldn't matter how many staff, zat and PR8 blasts were fired at it. Nothing would get through." Sam's expression told the story, she really didn't want to face this thing on a field of battle.

"Even armor piercing projectile weaponry would be of no use, since in essence, the armor would merely dissipate all the kinetic energy of the bullet…preventing any penetration."

"Are you telling me that this warrior is for all intents and purpose invulnerable to harm from any weapon we have?" Hammond asked incredulously. "How on earth did Teal'C and Bratac succeed in killing it?"

"They didn't," Harry said flatly. "The host was on the verge of pulmonary failure when it encountered them. The stress of the battle was last straw which broke the camel's back."

"It had a heart attack?" Hammond was flabbergasted.

"Sorry, Teal'c. You didn't stop it. You and Bra'tac just got lucky." Sam said regretfully.

"To think our lives, saved, by mere coincidence," Bratac scoffed in disgust. He clearly didn't like the idea of anything other than his own skill saving himself.

"As it stands currently, the only way to kill a warrior like this would be with overwhelming force," Harry continued. "The energy absorbers in the armor can only dissipate so much before overloading. But it would have to be huge."

"How much are we talking about?"

"According to Harry's calculations, the only thing man-portable in our inventory would be a NQN-1."

"But it's also overkill," Harry retorted. "A nuke the equivalent of a Hiroshima bomb would vaporize the thing and everyone within a few miles and it would be a last resort measure. A Phoenix X missile fired from an F302 or Darkstar Drone on the other hand, would do the job nicely and surgically."

"I'll order the Drones to be prepped accordingly," Hammond nodded.

"Getting to the genetic analysis," Harry changed the holo to show the results in question. "This thing's cellular structure is less than three weeks old. It's organic, but it was also definitely created in a lab. Now we know the Goa'uld have been trying to perfect a host that would be superior to humans, but this thing falls far short of the mark. It might be stronger, but it's far from superior."

"Traditionally. The Goa'uld are also somewhat vain about their appearance," Daniel pointed out.

"This was clearly intended to be a new form of foot soldier. A reaction to the recent uprising of the Jaffa. What's most interesting is that this being was not alive when it was first grown. It was given life after it reached its mature state."

"Frankenstein's monster." Daniel laughed humorlessly.

"A crude comparison, but accurate," Harry grinned wryly. "We found the remnants of a unique energy signature embedded within its cells. It has a similarity to that used by a sarcophagus."

"Could it give life to something that wasn't alive in the first place?"

"No. A sarcophagus is designed to boost health and longevity, heal or revive someone terminally injured. They are nowhere near powerful enough to animate non-living cellular matter."

"Then what is powerful enough to do it?"

"This is," Harry replied, and there was a musical hum of a transporter and after a white flash, a familiar cubical device had appeared on the table.

"The Alteran Healing device you used for Aiyana," Sam said in wonder, touching it.

"Yes," nodded Harry. "It will be most useful in dealing with this problem."

"Why?" Daniel asked curiously, whilst looking at the Alteran script on the device.

"Thousands of years ago a Goa'uld found a device like this. He determined its primary purpose was to heal. But it was so powerful, its effects on human hosts ultimately proved devastating. However, after much research and experimentation, the Goa'uld was able to use the technology to create the first sarcophagus."

"Obviously he wasn't able to eliminate all of its negative side effects." Daniel said with raised eyebrows.

"Yes, but the original Healing device should be effective now on Terrans since the Great Leap, but it's this device that will be the key to fighting these new warriors."

"How?" asked Hammond.

"Using this device I believe we can create a weapon that will counteract the life-giving energy. It's also this device which led me to conclude who was behind the creation of this warrior…Anubis. He would've had access to this knowledge while he was ascended."

"So he's finally dealt himself back into the game." Hammond sat back in his chair wearily.

"And no Goa'uld will be able to stop him."

"If Anubis is truly behind this, then his strategy is to assassinate any minor Goa'ulds vulnerable to attack, absorbing their troops and resources, in preparation for battle with Ba'al and the System Lords." Bratac threw in his first bits of strategic wisdom in.

"How many of these minor Goa'ulds have suffered attacks?"

"Three, in the last few days, all attacked simultaneously. These new warriors are devastating, none of the Jaffa who engaged them survived." The Leader of the Jaffa Rebellion was clearly unhappy and saddened at his deluded brother's slaughter – it didn't matter whether or not they were still Goa'uld loyalists, they were still of the same race.

"Do we have any idea where they're coming from?"

"None."

"Our fear is it's only a matter of time before Anubis targets one of our teams in the field as well."

"These beings are a threat to all who hope to one day see the Goa'uld wither in defeat." Bratac said firmly. "There is no guarantee that you can devise a weapon capable of fending off these warriors."

"I'll admit that's true," nodded Harry. "There are no guarantees, but every technology has a weakness, it's just a matter of finding it and exploiting it."

"We were only able to learn a limited amount from our study of the dead warrior and its armor. There are tamper-proof devices in it that prevent us from studying the technology in depth, not without it self-destructing." Sam explained regretfully.

"The only way to learn more is through interrogation." Teal'C rumbled.

"Which means we have to capture one of these warriors alive."

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**Ramius' Homeworld, Outer Goa'uld territories**.

The plan to capture one of Anubis' new warriors was quite simple in retrospect. The Goa'uld Ramius was still alive, and had escaped his near brush with death at the hands of the warrior currently lying in the SGC Morgue. Anubis would not let this go unanswered, and this made Ramius the next likely target. Bratac had a few rebel Jaffa undercover on this specific planet, meaning they would have covert local help and intelligence on the lay of the land.

The specifics of the actual capture of the warrior were a lot more technical.

SG1, SG3, Harry and Bratac emerged from the Stargate, weapons up and ready in case their reception wasn't of the friendly variety. But they relaxed somewhat when only a single Jaffa was there to meet them with his staff uncharged. Bratac walked up to him with a friendly smile and they clasped hands as brothers. The Terrans were introduced to Adal, Bratac's contact in the Jaffa of Ramius and the General of the Jaffa Rebellion quickly explained their presence and purpose.

Adal nodded in understanding although he was rather amazed and a little baffled at the idea. He led them to a point where they could see a Goa'uld Pyramid in the distance, with a huge moon as a backdrop in the sky and the sky was buzzing with Death Gliders and Cargo ships.

A dry riverbed now served as a route between the distant pyramid and the Stargate.

"I believe this is the best spot to set up for your ambush. This path leads directly to the pyramid of Ramius. I will go now to ensure that your eventual escape will be undetected." Adal explained to Bratac.

"Brother," nodded the Jaffa Leader, and clasped his man's arm.

"**Tek ma te**, Master Bratac, it is an honor to be in your service," Adal bowed after releasing Bratac's hand.

"Many thanks, Adal. **Chal nak**." The Jaffa nodded and hurried off into the direction of the pyramid.

"All right, Carter, Ambassador, do your thing. Reynolds, I want flanking positions set up on either side of the clearing. We only have one shot at this." Jack ordered.

"Roger that," Reynolds ran off to his team to get everything ready.

"You're sure this is going to work?" Jack turned to Harry and Sam.

"It's the only thing that'll work, hopefully the armor on one of these warriors will not be able to resist this, and otherwise it would complicate their ability to be deployed by Anubis into the field." Harry explained and he was the one carrying the device in question which would be used on the warrior. It was rather compact considering what it was going to be doing.

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In the end the teams from the SGC had to wait over ten anxious hours for the warrior to appear. There was no guarantee that Adal would be able to keep all the standard patrols away from the river bed indefinitely. The team link came alive.

"_SG-1 Niner, this is SG-3 Sierra. Target has just come through the gate and is en route to your position_." One of the members of SG3 had been tagged with the duty of watching the Gate from a concealed position…he also had been issued with a personal cloak, just in case he was detected by the Anubis warrior.

"All right people, heads up."

Harry kneeled behind cover next to Jack, Sam, Teal'C and Daniel, powering up the device no bigger than a large suitcase, and manipulating its controls. Everyone else charged their PR8s, while it wouldn't kill the warrior, it would distract it and perhaps with enough sustained fire even overwhelm the energy absorbers. But that was not the goal.

Finally the warrior appeared round the bend at a steady but fast paced jog. It was clearly intent on the distant pyramid and not even bothering to conceal its presence. It didn't have to. Nothing that Ramius had in his arsenal would make a dent, except perhaps a direct strike from a Ha'tak's main guns from orbit. It was also rather eerie; the eye sockets of the helmet on the warrior glowed bright blue.

When it was within the kill zone of the ambush, Jack only said one word into the team links "Fire."

Eight PR8s and one staff weapon opened up and thick blue streaks of plasma, aided by a single orange bolt from Bratac, struck the warrior…to no effect. The energy simply spent itself against the armor of the warrior. Undaunted the Terrans and Jaffa kept pouring it on. The combined weapons fire was rather deafening.

It seemed to be a pretty light show the Anubis warrior, even the kinetic energy transfer of the plasma, which would send anyone flying into the air as if they were hit by oncoming car, was harmlessly absorbed. But it achieved exactly what they wanted. It gave the warrior pause to halt and raised its thick gauntleted arms and for the first time the SGC saw a Goa'uld energy gauntlet in action.

It was like it carried a miniaturized energy machine gun on each arm, firing a near constant stream of tiny orange plasma bolts at the position of SG3, who instinctively ducked. The bolts hit their cover, and the power of it was such that it began blowing large chucks away from the tipped tree they were using.

"Have you got a lock?" screamed Sam, as she reloaded a power pack.

"Almost…got it!" declared Harry, everyone turned to the warrior as it was abruptly engulfed with a white light that blossomed at its chest and soon spread all over its body, when it was done…it flashed out of existence.

Harry immediately consulted the readings on the modified portable Transporter and gave a sigh of relief. "Its inside and its energy pattern is stable, we've got an hour before it begins to degrade."

"Well, let's get out of here, that amount of fire will have surely given away our position." Jack declared and everyone packed up and double timed it to the gate.

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**SGC, Hammond's Office**

Jacob Carter host to Selmak of the Tok'ra had arrived to be fully briefed on the new threat and the fact that they needed help 'officially'. Harry, host to Egeria, the Queen of all Tok'ra, had to do some fast talking on why the Tok'ra hadn't been brought in sooner. Jonas Quinn, host to Kanan, had also finally returned to Earth from a mission as he wanted to catch up with all his friends, and retake his post as official liason.

"**There was no need as yet to bring you in**," Egeria explained. "**The Tau'ri had things well in hand. It is only now that we have an Anubis warrior in containment that official Tok'ra help will be needed.**"

"**This effects the entire Alliance, we should've been notified the minute you received the corpse of the first one**," retorted Selmak. "**Not to mention the lives of the Tok'ra operatives in jeopardy if they should run into the crossfire of these warriors**."

"**Harry and I made a judgment call; we are still concerned over internal Tok'ra security,"** Egeria raised an eyebrow at Selmak to dare challenge that assertion. Selmak sighed and shook his head.

"Very well," said Jacob, taking back control. "How did you manage it?"

"**Harry simply modified a portable Transporter, to not only dematerialize the warrior, but keep it stored inside an energy buffer. We brought it back here, and rematerialized it inside a hermetically sealed room voided of air. It took fifteen minutes for it to fall unconscious,"** explained Egeria, shrugging Harry's shoulders.

"**Impressive**," Kanan grinned.

The phone on the desk rang and the General picked it up. "Hammond…very well." He hung up and said, "Our prisoner is awake."

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**SGC Laboratory 3**

The 'Super-soldier', a term coined by Sam to make it easier to refer to the Anubis warrior, was attached to a 'Hannibal Lecter' style containment cross, reinforced with inch thick trinium braces around its neck, arms and legs. It had been stripped of the hard portions of its armor and helmet, leaving it only with the kevlar like body suit and vulnerable. It looked exactly the same as the one in the morgue, it's head a transparent gelatin for skin, and its teeth showed through its cheeks.

It regarded its surroundings with casual scrutiny, and stared at them with eyes that were rather dim at first glance. Bratac and Teal'C were in the room with the soldier, whilst everyone else stayed in the observation room, looking down at the interrogation.

"Who do you serve? Hmm? Speak!" Bratac demanded.

"I serve Anubis," it replied in a grating voice that sounded like it never had much use.

"How were you created?" Teal'C asked intently. It made a strange growling sound but did not answer. Bratac turned to those in the observation room and shook his head. Clearly this thing was not intimidated at all, despite its situation.

"I think it's safe to assume they're not going to get anything more out of him. Have you found anything else?" General Hammond invited comment.

"Our initial scans indicate below normal brainwave patterns emanating from both the symbiote and the host. Basically, he's got all the strength and healing powers of a normal Goa'uld, but none of the normal personality traits," Sam explained in confusion.

"The Goa'uld have many means of brainwashing at their disposal," Harry stared at the super-soldier. "Anubis has access to Gatebuilder knowledge, it's not out of the realms of possibility that he developed a means to condition the Goa'uld symbiote as well."

"I'm open to suggestions. How can we find out what it knows, if anything?" the General asked.

"There is one possibility. We may be able to use a memory recall device to access any conscious images in its mind as it thinks them." Jacob turned to Harry pointedly. "This is what you've brought us here for?"

"It crossed my mind," he grinned.

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A few hours later, Jacob returned with the equipment he needed and to smooth things over, the SGC had handed over the corpse of the first super-soldier to the Tok'ra, so their own scientists could get a crack at the thing. He applied a Memory Recall device directly to the temple on the side of the soldier's head; and interfaced it with its attached equipment, all designed in the purple, curvy Tok'ra manner of construction.

"If his brainwaves are compatible with the device, we should be able to see whatever he's thinking holographically."

Jacob signaled Teal'C that everything was ready. Everyone in the Observation room held their breath.

"What is your planet of origin?" Teal'C demanded.

The holo device flared and it resolved to show the image of a star field.

"That's the sky above its planet," Jacob grinned in satisfaction.

"Yes, you can use that Tok'ra star mapping tech to get us gate coordinates," declared Sam in triumph.

"We've got the location of his homeworld."

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**SGC Briefing Room 1**

The holoscreen showed a starmap and patterns being drawn across the stars, until finally it resolved on a particular star.

"The Tok'ra call it Tartarus. It's a seemingly unoccupied planet on the edge of Goa'uld controlled space." Sam gestured with a laser pointer, and the screen zoomed in to show a system with four planets around a star, only one of which was in the liquid water zone.

"The Tok'ra are currently trying to get as close as they can to assess any defenses that might be there," Jacob said with a nod.

"If this is the super-soldier's planet of origin, what are we going to do about it?" Daniel asked.

"Depending on the defenses, I would say we shouldn't rule out an attack by Destroyers, especially by _Apollo_ and _Odyssey_, their new weapons could use a nice testing, otherwise, we load up on NQNs and perform a sabotage mission on whatever facility Anubis has there, nuke it into oblivion." Harry grinned with relish at the idea.

"Sounds good to me," grinned Jack. "I'd like to see Anubis' face, if he even has one, when a nuke goes off in it."

"That won't kill him," Harry pointed out.

"I know, but it'll piss him off."

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_A/N: Hey there. Ishta fans stay tuned; she's gonna be a lot more important in my story. Jonas is back, yay! With Harry around, no need for that trip to Honduras, so no Daniel bungling in the jungle. Honestly, I do not know what Sam was thinking in Canon; why would the Tok'ra Shield Trap work? The shield is energy, the Anubis Drone has armor that absorbs energy hence, it wouldn't be effective. It's like 2 plus 2. Honestly. Hope you liked my simple solution_. _No points for guessing my first crossover in 'The Terran Chronicles Series'_


	41. Chapter 41

_**Chapter 41**__ – __**Evolution Part 2 **_

**Planet Hoff, Pegasus Galaxy**

John Sheppard, fully disguised and encased in his chromesuit, walked alongside his similarly disguised team and regarded the vibrant city vista around them as they were escorted in a long exterior walkway in one of Hoff's many government facilities. This human world reminded him somewhat of what Earth had looked like in the 1920s, at least in terms of construction and materials science. It was married to the odd sight of having internal combustion automobiles at a level they were roundabout the fifties on Earth, along with electric trams.

Their escort was in fact, the planet's leader; a rotund, bearded man with greying white hair in a suit – Chancellor Druhin. He struck John as a forthright, pragmatic politician. He'd never thought he'd hear himself say this of any politician, but John wished that a lot more men like this were walking around in the corridors of power on Earth. Then again, the people of Pegasus couldn't afford to deal with the petty crap that usually came with self-righteous politicians, so full of themselves…not when they were on the dinner menu for some Wraith.

Druhin led them underground, on a walkway that stretched for a very long time, keeping a running commentary of the various rooms they passed, dedicated to this or that scientific function. The Hoffans clearly believed that going underground and out of sight from orbit was the best way to shield their accomplishments from the Wraith. It was very practical.

Finally, they passed an area that was brimming with bulky heavy equipment and steam that leaked from various valves which turned the atmosphere rather humid.

"Reliable power generation is one of our greatest concerns. With this project, we hope, soon, to be able to convert and utilise the intense heat trapped beneath the surface of our planet," Druhin explained in his deep, rumbling voice, gesturing to the pulsing machinery.

"Geo-thermo energy," Rodney piped up and turned to stare at the equipment with incredulity – the alien holomask was capable somewhat of emoting in tune with their faces, but only for the major ones. "What? Using _this_? Huh! Do you have any idea how _complex_ geo-thermo energy is..."

"McKay…" John's tone was forbidding; he gave a warning glance in the scientists' direction – who abruptly realized he was being insulting to the locals…

"I mean…it's going to work no problems."

"Looks like you're accomplishing great things here, Chancellor," John stated, eager to get the Chancellor's mind away from Rodney and throwing in a compliment.

"Since the last Wraith culling we have worked diligently to rebuild our society."

"Are you not concerned that your efforts will attract the attention of the Wraith?" Teyla asked with concern.

"Yes ... but we refuse to let that stop us from striving to reach our potential. To do otherwise would simply mean victory for them. However, we currently are working on a viable defence."

They were led from the geo-thermal area down the long corridor into what had to be a chemical lab; with white surfaces everywhere, test-tubes, Bunsen burners, the whole gambit, although it clearly lacked any computer based equipment or others like sonic cleaners, and micro scales.

"Defence? Really?" John said as Rodney walked around the lab with a look of nostalgia on his face, but clearly interested at the mention of a defence. "We've been here for two days before you mention that?"

"You are a non-human alien race, I had to learn that you could be trusted," Druhin retorted. John suppressed his wince at hearing that, and reasoned that he would do the same thing in the Chancellor's shoes.

"You're talking about some sort of defensive weapon?" Ford spoke up for the first time, as the Spec Ops specialist.

"You could call it that. Something that we hope will protect us from the next Wraith culling," Druhin stated mildly.

"So you are expecting it to happen again?" Rodney queried.

"Of course. But if the Wraith return as they have historically, they won't be here for at least another fifty years."

"Fifty years, you say," Rodney gave a dark look in John's direction.

"What about that weapon?" John winced, he hadn't yet told the Hoff of recent events in the Galaxy.

"Yes, yes – if you'll just come this way." Druhin lead the way out of the lab.

On the way to the next area, Rodney enabled a private link with John which would ensure privacy in the communication. _"You haven't told them that we practically woke the Wraith from hibernation, have you?"_

"_Well ... I really haven't had the chance,"_ John retorted.

"_We've been here two days!"_

"_One and a half, really."_

"_Major, they're not expecting the Wraith for another fifty years. We have to let them know they could show up at any time now."_

"_If you're so eager, why don't you tell them!"_ John grumbled in anger.

888888888888888

Chancellor Druhin led them to another part of the sprawling underground complex. This one clearly more medical in orientation; the people were wearing white, the walls were white, and there would occasionally be a doctor pushing a patient on a gurney to another area.

There were armed guards stationed at most access points as well – carrying bolt action rifles.

Finally they entered another laboratory.

"I don't think there's a hope in hell these people could have a weapon that ..." Ford mumbled critically.

"Weapons come in all shapes and sizes, Lieutenant." John cut him off, while he privately agreed, there was a small chance that the Hoffans did indeed have something.

A Hoffan scientist picked up a small test tube out of its rack, filled with a reddish liquid and handed it to the Chancellor, who in turn handed it to John. Was this a chemical weapon?

"OK, I'm intrigued. What is it?"

"Something that we hope will one day make us completely immune to the Wraith."

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**Conference Room, Atlantis, Lantea **

"According to Chancellor Druhin the drug is still several years away from being finished."

John and his team had finally returned after three days on Hoff, to deliver their report since the initial first contact. General Theron and Captain Herodotus (now officially vested by the STO as second in command of Atlantis) sat pensively in their seats as they listened to the most interesting discovery of the mission.

"I'd say, given their current level of technology, that, er, could be an under-statement. Just because they believe they're close to a breakthrough, it doesn't mean that they are," McKay pointed out.

"You saw for yourself – their entire civilisation is based upon the completion of that goal, Doctor McKay. I would not under-estimate them." Teyla said evenly.

"We don't know for certain that the Wraith threat is immediate to Hoff, perhaps we should have the _Briseus_ swing around that area of space," Theron mused.

"We can probably bet they don't have fifty years."

"Hence Major Sheppard has generously offered our help to the Hoffans," Rodney pointed out matter-of-factly.

"_Has_ he?" the General narrowed her eyes at John.

"Look, the fact is, if they're onto something, maybe we can speed up the process."

"OK, Major, you have a go. But if the drug really is just a pipe dream..."

"Our Doctor Beckett's already volunteered to help us find that out."

"Oh, he has, huh?" Theron grinned in amusement, she turned to Herodotus. "Is there any amongst the Lanteans who you feel could assist in this?"

"We were a ship of war," Herodotus said rather unnecessarily. "The only one who could come close to helping in the practical development of a drug is Pulla, she was the _Aurora'_s Sickbay Chief."

"Every bit counts at this point, the strategic benefit of having this would be even greater than the Hyperspace Jammer. If we could develop and somehow distribute this to all the worlds in Pegasus, we'd be starving the Wraith, literally."

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**Hoff Research Complex**

Barely a few hours later, Sheppard's team plus two was walking down the same corridor. The first was Doctor Beckett, striding along with a distinctly irritated manner. Next to him, infinitely more dignified and serene, was 'Doctor' Pulla. Like all the Alterans that had been revived, she was at a relative biological age in her mid to late twenties; with long auburn hair, blue eyes and the indefinable attractiveness that all of them seemed to share in one way or another. Of course, none of this was visible through the chromesuit and holomask, but her general attractive form was.

"It's not that I mind lending people a hand ..." Carson Beckett explained irately.

"No, of course not," John said immediately.

"You're a generous man, Carson," McKay supported.

"... but it's the principle of the thing, isn't it? You can't go volunteering someone for something without consulting them first. That's not even volunteering, is it? It's being _pressed_ into service."

"Expedition Command gave an order, you're part of the Command, technically you are being _ordered_ into service," Pulla pointed out ironically.

"I know tha', Doctor, it's just tha…" grumbled Beckett but trailed off.

"He just doesn't like going through the Stargate," McKay humorously pointed out.

"He's worse than Doctor McCoy," John grinned.

"Who?" Teyla asked in confusion.

"A popular science fiction character that Doctor Beckett plays in real life," John explained with a laugh.

"Converting somebody into energy and sending it millions of light years through a wormhole – bloody insanity," Beckett drawled his accent thickening.

"C'mon, how often do you get to travel to an alien planet?" Rodney pointed out.

"I was already _on_ an alien planet!"

Both Terran and Alteran medical professionals were soon in the Hoffan medical lab where the main research was being conducted. Hovering behind them was one of the Transcendental Storage Boxes; containing all the equipment they'd probably need in the coming weeks. Beckett and Pulla both materialized scanners and moved around the lab, eyeing the various equipment, chemicals, and other substances on display.

"From the looks of things they've mastered a few basics – biochemistry, physiology, perhaps even some form of molecular biology. Fairly impressive considering the relative stage of development they're at," Carson declared.

"I agree," nodded Pulla, her tone sounding more optimistic at any rate. "The chances of this project succeeding are much greater than I had originally thought…"

"It is our people's legacy. This room represents hundreds of years of medical knowledge." The unfamiliar voice belonged to a woman, dressed in the white of one of the Hoffan medical researchers. She had a pleasant warmth about her, the type where you knew you were in good hands if you were ever sick. Kind hazel eyes stared at them with interest and fascination. "I am Perna, chief scientist for the project."

"John Sheppard. This is Teyla, and Lieutenant Ford ...

"Carson. Beckett. Doctor. I mean, call me Carson." John had to stifle his snort of amusement at seeing the soppy way the Doctor was smiling – the holomask conveyed it pretty well. "And this is Doctor Pulla."

"I'm, uh, Doctor McKay, Doctor Rodney McKay." The scientist also clearly besotted with the woman, held out his hand, she looked at him, confused, ignoring his hand not understanding the greeting custom, then turned to Carson and Pulla.

"I hope you will find our facilities suitable."

"Oh, they're charming! Perfectly charming!" Carson replied. Pulla sighed and shook her head in exasperation. _Men!_, she thought. Even after all the eons of her races' existence, men still acted like idiots around attractive women. It seemed even the second evolution had inherited that trait.

A few minutes later the Chancellor and the rest of the team left the Doctors to continue the tour of the more sensitive areas of the complex. Perna, in the meantime, had pulled a thick book from a cupboard and laid it open in front of the two Lanteans.

"His name was Ferrel Mylan. Before he died in the last culling, he was one of our most celebrated medical researchers. He was the one who found it."

"Found what?"

"The key. His journals tell of one man who survived an encounter with the Wraith. Ferrel and his team discovered that this man possessed a unique protein, one that enabled him to resist the chemical released by the Wraith to precipitate draining of life from their victims. After painstaking trial and error ..." Perna gestured to the relevant page; with meticulous hand drawn cell diagrams, cross-sections, and even a rudimentary form of organic chemistry formulas. Both Doctors took it all in a glance.

"Ferrel made a copy of the protein," Pulla stated, looking intrigued.

"He was eventually able to create a prototype of a drug designed to interfere with the Wraith feeding process."

"And it worked?" Carson asked incredulously.

"Ferrel was killed before the drug could be used to defend Hoff," she shook her head sadly.

"And it's been your job to make certain his work wasn't in vain. Quite the responsibility," Carson commented heavily.

"It is a great honour," Perna stated humbly.

"I hate to be sceptical in this case, but how do you know for certain that this Ferrel wasn't just embellishing his results, or for that matter making them up? I mean, all you have to go on are his notes."

"He and his team worked until the last possible moment. They knew the Wraith ships were overhead and still they worked through the night, hoping to provide one more insight, one last thread of knowledge – not for themselves but for the generation that would survive. Ten thousand soldiers gave their lives to give them those last few hours. The last words of Ferrel's journal are known to all Hoffans." Perna explained with deep feeling and conviction that swayed both Carson and Pulla.

"We meant no disrespect for your ancestors sacrifice," Pulla shook her head sadly.

"It's alright. More than just his journals survived the culling." The Hoffan walked over to her desk and took out a thin glass slide, made for storing and viewing cells under microscope. "His research materials were safeguarded as well, including carefully-preserved Wraith cell samples which we still use in our work today." She put the cell slide into a rather bulky microscope, under its lens and gestured for the two Doctors to look through the eyepiece. "Please. See for yourself."

Carson, ever the gentlemen let his female colleague go first. Pulla awkwardly pushed the conforming faceplate of her chromesuit helmet against the top…the AI helpfully took the light from the microscope and displayed it on her HUD. She recognized that it was indeed Wraith cells…then she saw the protein Perna mentioned and…

"By Creation," Pulla stepped back from the microscope, totally astonished. Her people had suspected that with enough time, and Wraith Cullings, humanity in Pegasus might naturally evolve cellular defences…but to see it in her lifetime…

"That's incredible!" Carson stood up after viewing it too and the two Doctors shared a meaningful glance. Silently vowing to do whatever they could to get this drug working.

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**Conference Room 1, SGC, Earth, Milky Way**

Harry, Bra'tac, Teal'c, Jacob, General Hammond, Jack O'Neill and Sam, were all seated around the conference table, all listening in on the report Jacob had brought back from Tok'ra after a week's high priority sleuthing.

"We've confirmed that Anubis has a base on Tartarus. A powerful sensor array prevents anyone from approaching the planet unnoticed. The Stargate on Tartarus is inside the structure and has a powerful force field protecting it."

"We need to know exactly how Anubis created this new soldier, confirm what we believe his intentions are, and if possible, stop him. Any ideas?" Hammond queried to everyone.

"Even if we could defeat the force field, we have to assume that the Stargate would be heavily guarded," posited Sam.

"We must gain access to the planet by somehow temporarily shutting down the sensor array," Teal'C rumbled.

"If it's only a force field, then we already have the key to accessing the Stargate on Tartarus," Harry explained. "I will don the super-soldier's armor, walk through and infiltrate the base."

"What if using the suit has a physical cost? We have no way of knowing." Bratac pointed out.

"Even if there is such a cost, I'll be fine," Harry said firmly. "Besides I doubt it, if using the suit brought about a physical toll, it would make the super-soldiers horrendously short lived, even more so than they seemingly are now. It makes no sense economically speaking for Anubis to even make them then."

"So are we going with sabotage or a direct assault with Destroyers?" Jack asked.

"The ground to space defenses of the base is formidable," Jacob reported. "Anubis has none of his advanced Ha'taks for defense around Tartarus, for secrecy reasons. But the base itself has the phased plasma main guns and shields. Any ship you send would get heavily damaged if not destroyed. I suggest sticking to sabotage."

Harry inwardly grinned – Jacob would quickly revise his opinion if he saw the weapons _Odyssey_ and _Apollo_ were packing these days – a lot of it no small part due to the efforts of the Tollan Remnant on Luna. _Deadalus_ and _Prometheus_ were at this moment in the Luna Shipyards getting a similar weapons overhaul. And if that wasn't enough, the as yet unnamed Cruiser class ship would send the Goa'uld packing with their tails between their legs.

"As much as I would like besting Anubis in a straight up fight, I think we should keep our ships as an ace in the hole," Jack stated evenly.

"The STO agrees with you," nodded Hammond.

"Once I've deactivated the sensor array, a Tok'ra scout ship can then approach the planet with all the gear we'll need. Radioactive isotopes taken beforehand will permit us to move around freely without being detected by internal sensors inside the base," Harry explained.

"What's your exit plan?"

"The scout ship. During the mission, I will conceal it in one of the planet's many low lying chasms, powering down to further avoid detection," Bratac offered.

"Make it happen, people."

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**SGC Gateroom**

Harry stood awkwardly in the matt black armor of the super-soldier. It was rather uncomfortably tight, and grated on his skin. It made him wish ever harder that he could wear his chromesuit underneath, but there was every chance that internal scans of the base would reveal the presence of foreign technology. The only thing they could risk was a Tok'ra communicator tucked behind one of the breast plates of the armor – they were inherently designed to be undetectable from a variety of scans.

The Stargate was dialed and an active outgoing subspace path to Tartarus had been established.

"Commodore, you okay in there?" Hammond asked.

"Somewhat, though it's lighter than it appears," Harry commented. "Have they arrived?"

"They should be there. Good luck."

"Thanks," Harry tapped his head, and Sergeant Siler and another tech lowered the super-soldier helmet and secured it. Harry now saw the world through a dark red HUD that was visually analyzing what was around him, and displaying the results in small Goa'uld characters. '_This must be what Darth Vader feels like,"_ he thought bemusedly.

He took a few measured steps and feeling comfortable began to adopt the heavy walking style of the super-soldier and stepped up the ramp, and walked unflinchingly into the event horizon.

He completed his step on Tartarus and felt the buzzing of energy wash over him as he emerged, making the armor vibrate somewhat. It was gone in barely a moment though and he looked behind him to see an orange force field covering the Tartarus Gate. Anyone not wearing energy dampening armor would be vaporized instantly coming through the gate.

Harry turned around and immediately wondered if Anubis had perhaps seen one too many Bond films or even Austin Powers for that matter. Anubis' base was actually the inner hull of a Command class mothership, minus the exterior petal sections.

And it was perched above a fiery volcanic canyon.

'_He was known for being overly melodramatic_," Egeria chuckled into their shared mind.

"_Yeah, it's too bad his bark is just as bad as his bite, then."_

Tartarus itself seemed to be a world in its final stages of development before becoming Earth-Class. The atmosphere was in good shape but the land mass had still a few centuries to go before it would settle into a somewhat stable form.

The Stargate was situated on an exterior platform, with a connecting bridge that led directly into the main superstructure of the base. Harry began his journey crossing it, and a large set of doors split open automatically at his approach. Inside the superstructure, it was pretty much the usual gaudy Goa'uld interior. Finding the sensor array controls near the upper levels of the superstructure would be easy, if the ship layout hadn't been modified too extensively when it was turned into a base.

He had barely been inside for two minutes when he was stopped by a very familiar Goa'uld.

"You. Come with me," said Thoth. Harry wished he could simply raise his gauntlet weapon and cut the Goa'uld scientist in half. The bastard was partially responsible for the near destruction of the Tollan civilization, and turning the Tollan Curia governing body against the Alliance. Harry had to maintain the act as a super-soldier though and so he dutifully followed Thoth.

They proceeded up a few levels and entered a form of specialized lab, seemingly catering to the super-soldiers. There was a row of full body chairs bathed in blue light that was specially shaped for them, in addition to holo screens showing data in Goa'uld characters.

"Sit," Thoth gestured to the nearest chair. Harry obeyed again and sat down in the surprisingly comfortable chair. The scientist pushed a button on a device on his wrist, and a scanning light played up and down Harry's form. "You seem damaged," he mused and sat down behind one of the diagnostic consoles and began to tap away at it.

What followed a long hour of watching Thoth like a hawk; Harry had no idea if these scans would find anything amiss which would alert the scientist that something was wrong – he had to trust that Tok'ra engineering and radioactive isotopes did their job in fooling the sensors.

It was barely a few moments later when Harry had a dubious honor.

He was the first of the Alliance to be in the same room with Anubis himself and not in holographic form.

The banished, half-ascended Goa'uld was in his usual Dark Lord ensemble of synthetic black robe with overly big sleeves and hooded cowl bordered in red…pure oily darkness seemed to be underneath that cowl…where there should have been a face.

Harry curiously wondered what would happen should he hit Anubis right here with a Killing Curse. It would definitely destroy the force shield that held his body of pure energy together and capable of affecting the material realm, without it he would be a wraith – like Voldemort had been…only capable of possessing others to effect similar change. Harry was tempted…but it would only cause more death than it would be preventing.

Anubis was not alone though and a Jaffa in a black leather outfit, with crossed swords sheathed on his back accompanied him – these were the elite and most dedicated of Anubis' Jaffa.

"Thoth," Anubis' grating voice shrieked in the room.

The scientist rose to his feet and immediately bowed at the waist. "Lord Anubis, I was not expecting you."

"Tell me how this one has fared," Anubis gestured towards Harry.

"This one has just returned, my Lord," Thoth replied nervously, "I need time to finish my preliminary analysis before I can make a proper report."

"It can wait," Anubis gestured dismissively, "there is a remote probe malfunctioning. It requires your attention."

"Yes, my Lord."

Thoth followed Anubis and the Jaffa out, leaving Harry alone. He let out a breath of relief and after waiting ten minutes to make sure Thoth didn't return unexpectedly, stood and headed out the room – he had a date with a sensor array.

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Powering down a critical system like a sensor array without anyone else in the base becoming wise to it was not a walk in the park. The super-soldier armor provided easy movement throughout the base and he was not harassed in approaching the Goa'uld version of a Sensor Relay Room; which basically was a sub-processor station offshoot of the main computer core. The single Jaffa manning the main console in the centre of the room was rather startled at his entrance.

"What is it?" the Jaffa asked stoically, though Harry could sense he was rather uncomfortable in the presence of a super-soldier.

Harry stopped a few feet away from the seated Jaffa, who had turned to face him. "Lord Thoth summons you," Harry droned, the super-soldier's helmet distorted his voice considerably, and again Harry wondered if Anubis had seen Star Wars.

"Where is my relief? This place cannot be left unattended."

"Lord Thoth summons you," Harry repeated simply, cocking his head slightly and playing the mindless soldier.

The Jaffa scowled visibly and stood, shaking his head and muttering, "You Kull Warriors might be formidable in battle, but you have no initiative, no soul, and that is no warrior." As the Jaffa passed Harry, in a blur of movement he struck; hitting the back of the Jaffa's skull with precision and just enough power to give instant unconsciousness, but without killing.

The Jaffa just keeled over and Harry caught his body before he could make a sound by hitting the deck. Dumping the body immediately out of sight behind the console, he headed over to the door, sealed it and took the Jaffa's place at the sensor controls.

It was the work of thirty minutes programming a sensor feedback loop, which would give the computer and the main command centre of the base a false sensor image of just plain empty space in the Tartarus System. With that done, Harry briefly pulled off one of the super-soldier gauntlets and gloves on his left hand to deliver a long lasting Stunner energy matrix into the prone Jaffa.

Getting the rest of SG1 into the base would be easy now. He pulled out the Tok'ra communicator and sent the 'All clear' signal for the cargo ship that should be hiding behind one of Tartarus' moons. Harry waited nervously for about ten seconds when the 'On our way' message came through.

Half a minute later, "We're out from behind the moon and are making our approach," Sam's voice filtered through the encryption.

"Good, have Bratac' hover you to one of the exhaust ports on the northernmost perimeter of the base." Harry instructed and replaced the communicator in its hiding spot and redressed in the 'Kull' armor.

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Harry was forced to remove the helmet, gloves and gauntlets to be able to get the precision required to mess with the internal mechanics of the exhaust port. Finally, after a rather nerve wracking ten minutes of tinkering the port opened, allowing Teal'C and Sam entrance with all the gear they would need – Jack would remain behind with Bratac since they were going for stealth and that meant less infiltrators. For once, Anubis' penchant for secrecy worked in their favor, Tartarus was very sparsely populated with patrols, and their luck held out – no roving patrols discovered them.

"That took longer than I expected," Sam stated, whilst Teal'C kept his PR8 up and alert for any patrols.

"Yeah well, Anubis has significantly improved his internal security over the standard Ha'tak class. I saw that he was even using one of the oldest known dialects of Alteran combined with enhanced encryption."

"But you broke it," she grinned.

"Yes," Harry shrugged, getting back in his full Kull armor again. They didn't want to get into a fight with any Kull warrior, and since they were also invulnerable to each other the only advantage it would offer would be for Harry to soak up damage and provide a distraction.

Now they had to be careful of discovery whilst they hunted for the intelligence. Harry would remain in full sight, whilst Teal'C and Sam shadowed him in the recesses along the corridors. It was during this time that they encountered three other Kull warriors all deliberately walking with purpose somewhere in the base.

"How many do you think Anubis has?" Sam said softly.

"There's no way of telling yet," Harry shook his head. "The lab I was in was made to service several. So at a guess, fifty odd."

Some time later they entered another lab that seemed to be designed for the Kull warriors, however, this one was much larger. It had numerous fluid tanks, and flowing pool areas which were designed for only one purpose.

"Symbiote holding tanks," Harry sighed. "They are empty, and that is not a good sign."

"This one is not," Teal'C called from one end of the lab. Sam and Harry walked down to meet him and there, with its bloated womb was a Goa'uld queen.

"Judging by the number of holding tanks in this room, Anubis must be planning to have the Queen spawn thousands of Goa'uld. But why? A symbiote is spawned with the genetic memory of the maternal bloodline. They're egomaniacal and power hungry. That's not exactly a good combination for a foot soldier."

Harry removed his helmet and his eyes glowed and Egeria surged to the fore. "**You are correct, Major Carter. But recall a Queen's abilities with regards to her young**." Egeria waved a scanner over the Goa'uld Queen. "**It's as I thought. This Queen is consciously blocking off her mind – she has no intention of passing on her genetic memory. The symbiotes will be 'blank slates'. Anubis will be free to imprint them however he sees fit. No free will—they're drones. They make the perfect soldier. Deadly, fearless, unquestioning loyalty.**"

"This Queen must not be permitted to spawn again," Teal'C declared.

"**I agree, we already have enough of a problem, since I detect she has gone through a spawn cycle already**," Egeria said grimly staring at the Alteran styled scanner. "**Combine that with the fact that these tanks are empty…"**

"Anubis could have thousands of super-soldiers already," Sam deduced with horror.

"**A distinct possibility**," Egeria nodded. "**Place the nuclear device right here**. **Then we will see if we can confirm that fact.**"

Sam pulled out an NQN from her pack, armed it and stuck it right to the bottom of the Queen's holding tank where it would be out of immediate sight. Egeria replaced the helmet over Harry's head and the trio walked out.

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"There must be a console somewhere that will let us access a log of recent activity. Even if it doesn't contain Anubis' long-range plans, we might be able to gather intel on the movement of his fleet." Sam aimed her PR8 down one corridor of a main junction.

"Perhaps," Harry said, reading the Goa'uld markings on the wall near another corridor, "labs and storage in this direction." He looked towards Teal'C's position. "Engineering is that way. I think to the left is our best bet for Anubis' quarters."

What they found wasn't Anubis' quarters, but a large indoor arena. The three infiltrators crouched in an observation dome/balcony that looked over the area. The arena was the height of Goa'uld bling and design arrogance; obsidian floors, gold and grey black walls, with at the head of the arena long windows that allowed the dark red hued sun to spill light into the place. It was here that an anti-gravity platform hovered, on which stood Anubis himself gazing imperiously out over the arena.

An arena that was practically filled with marching Kull warriors in perfect formation.

Anubis' voice boomed over a PA and echoed darkly across the area. "You are all my children. Kull Warriors. You are the instruments of my conquest."

In unison the Kull Warriors responded. "Hail Anubis! Hail Anubis! Hail Anubis!"

"Now that is something you don't see every day," Harry said mildly, it belied the fact that it felt like his insides had turned to ice. "Think our nuke is big enough?"

"The amount of naquadah alloy in this base, not to mention its own power core and the naquadria nuke," Sam considered it for a mock moment. "That's a big bang…I'd not want to be on the same continent."

"Fools!"

Harry and the others whirled as Thoth showed himself, ribbon device raised and glowing. Teal'C drew and raised his zat in an instant, but couldn't fire because Harry had sprinted for the Goa'uld with all the speed he could muster. Thoth fired a kinetic wave, which was easily absorbed by the Kull armor – it was pretty much a petty and stupid gesture with retrospect. Thoth could've easily snuck away and raised the alarm and brought the entire Kull army running to capture or kill them. Luckily for them, he was a Goa'uld – and by his nature was arrogant and self-serving to the detriment of common sense. Thoth was also no warrior, despite having the strength a Goa'uld imbues in their hosts.

Harry had that from Egeria, plus his Alteran heritage, countless hours of training and battle.

It was pretty much over in less than three seconds. He deflected a clumsy but powerful punch from Thoth, stepped into close quarters, grabbed Thoth by the neck and kneed the Goa'uld in the gut with enough force to damage internal organs and break ribs. It was followed up by Harry threading his arm around the neck and with the motion of leverage, snapped Thoth's neck.

It was quick and quiet.

Unfortunately, the kinetic wave from the ribbon device had tripped the internal sensors – the main base alarm sounded.

"We've got to get out of here," Harry hissed and they ran, Sam summoned Bratac to return via the communicator as they went.

"Time for stealth is gone, Bratac! Just get back to the insertion point," she shouted into the communicator.

Harry led the way, finding the most efficient route back to the exhaust port entrance they had used. A hair raising dash later, where their luck held out with no Kull warrior intercepting them yet, Harry triggered the exhaust port's purging function and opened the way for them to leave.

The cargo ship was already there and hovering with its side entrance open and waiting for them to jump the gap. Sam went first and easily made it…Bratac clearly showing his pilot skill by holding the ship to within a few feet of the base. Teal'C went next and finally Harry.

They secured the ship's airlock and rushing into the cargo's ship's bridge area, when they heard a loud thud on the hull.

"What was that?" Jack asked from the co-pilot seat of the ship.

"Can't be good, just punch it!" Sam called, breathing hard from their run.

The cargo ship turned and streaked away from Anubis' base, phased plasma bolts chasing them all the way. Under the expert guidance of Bratac they were only hit a few times, draining the shields badly, but it protected them long enough to get out of range.

A beeping on Bratac's console occurred at that moment. "Someone has opened the rear engine access hatch."

"We're mid flight!" Sam cried in disbelief.

Disbelief turned to cold hard reality when a Kull warrior charged into the bridge area. Sam pointlessly fired her PR8 on full auto into the thing's chest. It swung and connected a solid forearm to her head which sent her sprawling onto the deck. Next it raised a gauntlet towards Teal'C and sent a burst of plasmatic destruction towards him, only a single bolt managed to hit the Jaffa in the shoulder before he could find cover.

It was at this point that Harry weighed in. The Kull warrior sent a burst in his direction, which was absorbed harmlessly. He closed the range again and it boiled down to another close quarter's battle.

Harry traded punches and kicks with the warrior, but again the very features of the armor dissipated the kinetic energy of the punches and kicks. He ended up having to once again use leverage and joint locks and twists to effectively fight. The Kull warrior was much better than Thoth, but only in terms of training, it had no proper experience to draw from – the Kull was essentially a machine in terms of hand to hand. It used superior strength to brute force its opponents, and was way stronger than a Goa'uld, but there was little in the way of control or technique.

The battle carried over into the rear cargo area, where Harry deflected two swings from the Kull by dodging and slapping the limbs away. He grabbed a hold of its right arm, and using leverage, pulled the Kull's arm right out of its socket. With it's centre of gravity off tilt he swept its legs out from under it, and it crashed to the floor face first.

A quick as a snake he planted his knee on the spine of the Kull, grabbed a hold of its helmet and with a quick twist…broke its neck.

Breathing heavily from the exertion he stood up and dragged the Kull till it was within the circle of the Transport Rings and walking towards the controls, tapped in a sequence. With a shrill scream the obsidian rings raised around the supposedly dead Kull and transported it away, to materialize onto a Ring platform within Anubis' base.

Harry pulled off his helmet and wearily trudged forward into the bridge area. Jack was tending to both the wounded Teal'C and Sam, but it was clear from his impressed and slightly awed eyes that he had seen the whole battle.

"Damn, remind me never to piss you off," Jack said.

Harry chuckled ruefully in response but a look out the forward bridge windows told him they were out in space already. "Bratac, maintain our forward momentum, swung us around to look at the planet – send the signal."

"It'll be my pleasure," nodded the old Jaffa with satisfaction. The cargo ship killed it forward acceleration and rotated until Tartarus was dominating the view. They were only about half a light second away, and there was a beeping from the console. "The signal is sent."

A few moments later, a massive flash of light reached them, forcing them to look away briefly. When they could see again, it was to witness the awesome power of pure nuclear destruction; a truly massive shockwave was spreading in a perfect concentric sphere from ground zero…the clouds had become mere streaks of thin lines as the massive atmospheric displacement of air…in the centre of it all a massive bloom of pure fire reached up.

Harry sat down somewhat awkwardly in the co-pilot's chair and began to run scans and recording for post-mission analysis, but he could verify one thing immediately.

"Anubis' base is completely incinerated, folks."

"You all have the thanks of the Free Jaffa today," Bratac declared. "There is no telling how many lives we have saved with the destruction of so many of Anubis' warriors."

"It was a team effort, Bratac," Harry said, "but unfortunately, we can't be sure that this was the only Kull warrior production facility. There is a strong possibility Anubis has more."

"Nevertheless, this is a massive blow to the Goa'uld."

"Especially if we tagged Anubis with that nuke," agreed Jack.

"We probably did," nodded Harry. "He'll be just a disembodied wraith of energy, only able to possess the bodies of others. The Stargate here was also destroyed, so he'll be stuck until a ship comes for him."

A few minutes later the cargo ship reoriented and vanished into a Hyperspace window.

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**Atlantis, Lantea, Pegasus Galaxy**

Carson and Pulla walked excitedly along with General Theron down one of the corridors of the Central Spire of Atlantis on their way to the Gate room, eagerly relaying their findings of the Hoffan drug.

"We saw it with our own eyes, General," Carson said intently.

"In a Petri dish, and we are talking about a hundred and fifty year old Wraith cells. For all we know, they could be immune to the drug by now, or come up with defences against it."

"We also ran the test against the Wraith arm Major Sheppard brought back from Athos, General," Pulla shook her head. "The results were the same: near _complete_ resistance."

"So what do you recommend?" Theron stopped and raised an eyebrow at both medical scientists.

"We need to take the work to the next level, and for that we need a test subject," Carson sighed. "A live one."

"You need us to capture a Wraith," Theron's eyes narrowed. "You realise what you're asking for?"

Carson nodded grimly.

Theron took a deep breath, closing her eyes and eventually said, "Very well, we have a raid planned two days from now on a Wraith outpost. I'll have it added as a secondary mission objective." The General nodded at them both as she stepped into a Transporter station and tapped her destination on the rear pad, her face had become a stone mask…the doors closed, there was a flash and she was gone.

"What was that all about?" Pulla asked her fellow Doctor, seemingly mystified as to the grim air between the two Terrans.

"One of the darkest chapters of Terran history, Pulla," Carson shook his head. "It's something that we don't like to think about, but we dare never forget it. Almost all children on Earth the moment they reach late puberty are taught about it. Capturing a Wraith in war for forced medical experimentation…" He sighed heavily. "My dear, let me tell you about an awful chap named Doctor Josef Mengele and a bunch of bloody bastards called Unit 731…"

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Colonel Henry MacTavish cursed as he jumped behind a tree, whispy blue bolts threading through them from the Wraith battle line, seeking to hit him and his unit of twelve men that was trying to advance through this forest towards the looming Wraith structure a kilometre away. The structure itself was ugly as shit, vaguely circular, organic, with dark blue and grey…it almost looked alive, as if it was grown…heck, it probably was.

His troops were using a fire and advance strategy, another two squads was attacking this outpost form different directions, and his reserve squad was trying to flank the line directly in front of him.

His PR8 had already claimed six dead Wraith warriors. He popped out of his cover – sizzling blue plasma bolts whined into the chilly morning air and hit another Wraith…this one a command drone…in the head, which essentially flash fried the thing's brain a millisecond before it's head exploded.

_Number seven_, he thought with satisfaction, as more whining shots seared through the trees from his men.

'_Colonel! We've got heavy resistance on the west side! We need aerospace support!'_

"Fuck!" Henry cussed and engaged a link with the Briseus in orbit. '_Briseus,_ MacTavish – need some help down here!"

"_We're still dealing with the Wraith up here Colonel, can Delta team hold out?"_

"The Wraith are throwing the majority of their force against them! Surely you can spare one bloody shot from a weapon array!" Henry shot a three bolt burst that felled another warrior.

"_We're fighting three Cruisers and a Hive, Colonel! We can't exactly manoeuvre on a whim, but you'll get it."_

"Thank you!" he snapped and closed the link, rushing forward and rolling into cover behind another tree. Sure their chromesuits could take five or six of these wimpy Wraith stun bolts, but not seven…and none of them wanted it to get to that point.

A glance at his HUD showed that the battle had only been going on for eight minutes – the whole thing was ample proof of the dictum that no plan survives first contact with the enemy. This was only supposed to be an intelligence raid on a minor Wraith outpost…_Briseus_ had been waiting under cloak on the outskirts of the system – in case the assault teams were cut off from the Gate.

It quickly became apparent the minute they arrived that this was no longer an intelligence raid. They'd had the bad fucking luck to arrive when a Hive and its escorts showed up – forcing _Briseus_ to engage to keep the assault teams from getting mobbed by an armada of Darts. The ship had been aware of the approaching Hive but had not been able to warn off the raid in time – since Atlantis was on the other side of the Galaxy and not in range.

Finally, a searing massive orange beam cut through the sky and strafed the ground in a precision line, massive explosions of earth followed it in a path of pure destruction. Henry grinned in satisfaction as he saw the long line of Wraith bio-signs to the west wink out.

'_We're clear, thanks_ Briseus!" screamed the commander of Delta squad.

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In Orbital space of M31-329, the _Briseus_ yawed to avoid another barrage of Baryon blasts from the Hive, and lashed out with lances of particle energy that hit one of the three Wraith cruisers that were hounding the Dreadnought. The cruiser's thick organic metal hull struggled to hold under the bombardment and dissipate the destructive energy, but it was quickly overwhelmed and the beams bisected the Cruiser neatly in two before blowing up in a massive liberation of energy that by sheer luck took another Cruiser out as well.

Seizing the initiative – eight missiles sped from her tubes that closed at half the speed of light towards the cloud of Darts protecting the Hive ship. The small fighter ships tried their best to intercept and actually managed to destroy two of the missiles by sheer mass of fire, but the relative ranges just left too little time to react and four small artificial suns went nova which reduced over a hundred Darts into their constituent atoms.

The remaining two missiles reached their detonation points, just about five hundred meters from the hull of the Hive, before they too exploded…tearing massive rents into the two kilometre long organic hull…secondary explosions soon started and Briseus fired two yellow particle beams directly into the Hive's power core…

The Hive ship split apart briefly before being utterly consumed in a brief massive energetic flash as its reactor went critical and the energies released in a titanic explosion.

The remaining Cruiser turned to make a run for it. Opening a Hyperspace window, but a snap shot from _Briseus_ hit the ship right on its rear engine emitters. The blue purple cloud of subspace dissipated before it could even form properly into a cohesive gateway, and two more particle beams traced along the spine of the ship before it too was consigned to become a cloud of dissipating incandescent plasma.

Aiyana seated in the Control chair of the massive ship breathed a sigh of relief. They had space superiority, and not a moment to soon, the shields had been badly strained to keep up with the Wraith weapons – it's strength was at thirty two percent and recharging. She sent a mental thank you to Apollonia for designing the Mark 2 ZP Module – the ship's shields would not have held out with a Mark 1 powering it.

She mentally engaged a com link with Colonel MacTavish. 'What's your status?'

"_We're inside, battle is ongoing, oh we managed to stun and tag a Wraith Officer. You should be able to beam him up no problems."_

Aiyana ran a scan and did indeed find the active tag, and sent a mental instruction to have the Wraith beamed into the ship's brig.

"We've got him, now hurry up and get that intel, I'm not in any condition to take on more Wraith up here."

"_Understood."_

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**Containment Cells, Atlantis, Lantea**

John Sheppard walked into the dark ominous area which boasted a number of square…cages for lack of a better word. They were made apparently from the strongest alloy the Alterans could produce. The thin bars were further reinforced with a force field. So the Wraith command drone kneeling in a zen like pose was well and truly locked in with no way out. There were also four Terrans in full chromesuit alien disguise, keeping constant watch on the thing, with PR8s ready at all times.

He truly wondered why MacTavish had chosen him for the interrogation of the Wraith – there were surely a heck of a lot better guys for this job than him. But he had been given an order by a superior so he would just have to wing it and see what happened.

John walked up to Sergeant Bates; who had been detailed to oversee the security arrangements, "Anything I should know about, Sergeant?"

"No, sir, he's been quiet."

"Still trying to make you see things?"

"He gave up a day ago; I think he got tired of getting mentally whipped."

John walked up to the bars and the Wraith looked up with those hawk-like green eyes.

"Howdy, I'm Major Sheppard," John grinned, hoping his holo-mask translated that to the Wraith. "Oh, sorry if I woke you. Just came by to see if there's anything you needed – magazine, fresh towels."

The Wraith stood up to its full height; the body length dark leather overcoat flaring. It snarled baring its mouthful of bug teeth at him.

"What are you?" the Wraith asked in anger.

"Now why should I enlighten you?" retorted John. "Do you have a name? This conversation will be so much easier. You guys _do_ have names, right?" The Wraith simply stared in response. "Let me guess..." John looked away mockingly for a moment as if thinking, "... Steve?"

"I am your death. That is all you need to know," sneered the Wraith, looking around interestedly.

"I prefer Steve," John shrugged.

"What do you hope to gain from this? Your race's attack will be met with swift reprisal from the others."

"I doubt they'd know where to find us, it's a _big_ Galaxy, after all," John gestured with his hands mockingly. "But what do I hope to gain? Just trying to bridge the gap between our two cultures; get to know you better. That and try to figure out how to keep your kind from sucking the life out of millions of innocent sentients in this Galaxy."

"Even if I told you what you want to know, it would change nothing. You are doomed – as are any others that stand in our way," sneered the Wraith now known as Steve.

"You know, we're gonna leave you here for a long time," John grinned. "Have you fed on a human recently? Yes, no? Just how long can you go without feeding whilst not in a stasis pod? Hmmm? Can't be a nice way to die…hungry…slow…that encroaching feeling of weakness that crawls through your body…slowly…slowly…"

The Wraith abruptly roared and tried to strike out at John, but its claws and hands bounced off the force field. "Why do you keep me here?"

"How many Hive ships are roaming the Galaxy?" John roared back.

"You have nothing to offer me in return!"

"We could talk about easing your hunger ... Steve."

"You would sacrifice a human?" sneered the Wraith. John merely tilted his head and smirked.

"What do you think…Steve?"

"Bring me a human, and I will tell you all you want to know."

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**Planet Hoff, Immunity Lab**

Carson and Pulla were busy setting up their equipment; which ranged from qomputers, medical scanners, holo displays, DNA manipulators and bio-synthesizers. All of it had to be powered by a portable Naquadah Reactor. Perna was understandable amazed and baffled at all the advanced technology.

"I have never seen devices such as these!"

"The work you've done refining the drug has been good up till now. With all this," Carson smiled, powering up a laptop qomputer; which immediately displayed enlarged microscopic images from the medical scanner in front of him; which contained live cells from the Wraith that was cooling its heels in Atlantis' brig, "we can make it better. From what I can tell, your biggest problem is that the test inoculations failed to show enough of a presence in human cells to be effective."

"What we need is a better delivery system," nodded Perna in understanding.

"Exactly. And the best place to start is to recreate the key protein in the serum and work our way up from there. If we can avoid having to re-engineer it from a natural source, and make an entirely synthetic version, it should ultimately increase the efficiency."

"Such a thing is possible?" Perna asked doubtfully.

"Of course, anything is possible Perna," Pulla smiled as she powered up the bio-synthesizer and started to manipulate its controls.

Carson nodded in agreement and clapped his hands together. "C'mon then, a bald head is soon shaved." And began to tap on the qomputer, virtually displaying the key protein chain they were working with and began to manipulate it.

"You speak differently than the others," Perna observed.

Carson smiled, "Noticed that, did you? Sorry if I confuse you. I come from distinct sub-culture on my world. Trust me, where I come from, it all makes perfect sense."

"What is it like?"

"Scotland? Oh, I think it's beautiful. But I'm told it's something of an acquired taste,"

"I meant your world. It must be so peaceful there, knowing that the Wraith will not come."

Carson shook his head in a rueful laugh. "Oh, you'd be surprised how _not_ peaceful it is. My people are not just here for giggles. We're fighting against a race at home that is in some ways more powerful than the Wraith."

"More powerful?" Perna's eyes almost bugged out at hearing that.

"Aye," Carson nodded sighing heavily, thinking about Earth.

"You miss it – I'm sorry for enquiring."

"Oh, no, no. Don't be, love. All right, Pulla, can you get started on the simulations?"

8888888888888888

It took two weeks of work before both Carson and Pulla were satisfied with a first prototype version of the Wraith inoculation. There was a problem however.

A holographic human body hovered in the air, it was given the test inoculation, and they watched as the protein asserted itself…they sped up the simulation and abruptly the human body flared red.

"Blast!" cussed Carson, whilst Pulla felt like smashing one of the tables.

"What is it?" Perna asked staring at the holograph.

"We've analyzed the inoculation's effect over time and over a broad range of genetic profiles," Carson explained with a weary sigh. "It indicates that one in every three people who takes this drug will die of acute respiratory failure within a few days of taking it."

"And the two thirds who survive?"

"They'll have immunity; the drug is showing one hundred percent cellular penetration," Pulla explained. "We overlooked something…it's the only explanation."

"I think we need more heads in on this, we should send our research in the next datastream to Earth, get full-time medical researchers in on this," Carson asserted.

"I think this is important enough to warrant establishing an intergalactic wormhole in and of itself," Pulla argued.

"Aye," nodded Carson.

"How long will that take?" Perna asked uncertainly.

"Sending the research back, by tomorrow, given we've done the hard work of DNA sequencing and building a prototype, we could see a hundred percent safe version being manufactured within three weeks, maybe a month, if that is at all possible."

"My people have waited a long time to see the completion of this drug, Carson," Perna said earnestly. "But can we afford that time, with the Wraith awakened?"

"We will do all within in our power, Perna, to make this happen as quickly as possible."

888888888888888888

**Milky Way, 2000 LY Rimward from Terra **

The four hundred meter bulk of the Terran Destroyer _Apollo_ emerged from Hyperspace into one of the last meticulously calculated areas of space that had been designated as a prime spot to deploy one of the new satellites that would form a detection grid between Terra and the Aschen Confederation – it was known as COSUS (Cosmos Surveillance System). This was _Apollo_ and _Odyssey_'s first mission as fully commissioned vessels and both ships had spend the last three weeks deploying the horse-shoe shaped grid which would effectively box in the Aschen.

_Odyssey_ had already completed its assigned satellite deliveries and this delivery would make the first phase of the COSUS net complete. There would later be a second phase which would essentially encircle Terra at a range of three thousand light years – which would act as a backup to the extra-galactic Asgard satellite net.

The satellites themselves were about the size of an F302, and using phase shift technology could both make itself intangible and invisible. They were powered by a combination of Naquadah reactor and a Tollan derived Field generator. The satellite had a truly phenomenal detection range of over a sixty light years in every direction and was also now sophisticated enough that it would penetrate the latest generation of Goa'uld cloaking devices.

The COSUS net construction had also given the opportunity to amass a truly huge amount of scientific data on astro-phenomena and star systems which were completely off the Stargate grid - since both ships had to travel far off the beaten path.

Harry and the rest of SG1 had joined _Apollo_ for the last three satellite deployments – the reason for this was pretty much that Sam had managed to finagle her way onto the ship to do scans of a nebula that had pretty much intrigued her since staring at it through a telescope during her college days.

Of course, Jack had immediately called in a marker with General Hammond and pretty much said, "Where she goes, SG1 goes."

Harry's reason for coming along was – besides the scientific interest in the odd nebula – that he had gotten an oddly strong premonition of the future; he had no idea of the details…just that he had to be on the _Apollo_ during this time.

Her commanding officer was a rather no-nonsense Colonel Abraham Ellis – of average height but visibly quite strong – he strode around his ship in the new obsidian coloured chromesuit that was issued to all STO Space fleet personnel serving aboard a starship. The 'Eagle' of a Colonel was mounted on his shoulders and red command piping traced along his collar. He ruled his ship with iron discipline and expected hundred and twenty percent from everyone.

Harry found himself impressed with the Colonel's ability as a ship captain; he got results and his crew was a well oiled machine already and motivated. On the negative side, Ellis had a tendency unfortunately to be a bit overbearing on occasion, and looked down upon the scientists on his ship as 'undisciplined rabble'. He was clearly of the opinion that _Apollo _was a warship and a scientific vessel a distant second. He also saw the science systems on board as draining power which could be better allocated elsewhere.

Which was why he currently didn't look too happy discussing the scientific mission with Sam and Harry as they emerged from a gravitic elevator and onto the Bridge deck. Both were also clad in chromesuits as well, but kept the silver scheme – seeing as they were not in Space Fleet.

"So this thing is different from the bog standard nebula, how?" Ellis asked flatly.

"Well, that's the thing, Sir, using telescopes from Earth we've never been able to account for some of its composition," Sam explained.

"And it just so happens that this nebula is in the general vicinity of our last COSUS satellite deployment."

"It'll only be a little out of our way, Colonel, I promise," she swore. "All I ask is for two hours tops."

"Very well," Ellis nodded with a wooden expression and entered the Bridge.

"Feel the enthusiasm!" Harry said in an undertone and grinned at Sam, whose mouth twitched as she suppressed a laugh.

They entered the Bridge and took unobtrusive positions next to the Science station, and observed the crew as they attended to their duties. Sam took a spare seat at next to the _Apollo_'s own Science officer and began to prepare her scanning programs for when they would reach the nebula.

"Ellis to Flight deck, what's the status on that satellite?" the Colonel spoke into his chair com.

"_Ready to launch, sir."_

"Then by all means."

"_Yes, sir."_

Barely two minutes later the large forward viewscreen showed the satellite using it's gravitic thrusters to move into its preprogrammed position. It had a multi-pronged hexagonal design and was additionally made with light absorbent materials that would let it blend into the background of space – of course, it didn't really need it with a phaseshifting cloak, but if there's one thing that STO engineers liked to have, then it was redundancy.

"Satellite is in position and coming to a relative stop, sir," reported the Sensor officer.

"Thank you," nodded Ellis. "Com, are you receiving a test signal from the satellite?"

"Not yet, sir, wait one…affirmative, it's broadcasted the test signal, all systems are go," the Com Officer replied. "I can also confirm that it's communicating with the other satellites." The Officer frowned as he worked with a near blinding speed at his station. "We've got a positive correlation, sir. The COSUS net is active."

"Satellite is cloaking," said the Sensor officer.

"Well done, everyone," Ellis nodded with a rare smile, and the Bridge crew allowed themselves a moment to relax and enjoy the feeling of a successful mission.

A beeping alarm from the Com officer's station, focused everyone's attention there though. "Uh, Colonel, we've got a contact on COSUS," the man said with astonishment.

"Already?" Ellis asked incredulously.

"Yes sir, confirmed," the Com officer nodded, staring into his holoscreen. "In fact, it's hovering just outside our own sensor range."

"Does the satellite have a positive ID on the contact?"

"Silhouette and power readings match an Aschen battlecruiser."

"Damn it, give me Tactical!" snapped Ellis.

The viewscreen of the starfield and the distant nebula vanished for a moment to show the Aschen ship's position relative to the _Apollo_.

"It's shadowing us," Harry murmured. "They clearly have a longer range on ship sensors than we do."

"I thought the Aschen Hyperdrive was too slow for them to have reached this point so soon, Commodore?" Ellis turned in his chair to address the question to Harry.

"It's possible that this is a deep space vessel on extended deployment that they merely redirected to head in our direction," Harry posited.

"The odds of our encountering it are totally ridiculous," Ellis shook his head. "Yet here we see it."

_Beep, beep, beep._

"Sir, energy spike from the Aschen cruiser! It's in Hyperspace headed straight for us on an attack vector!"

"General quarters!" Ellis snapped.

The Bridge lighting turned to an eerie blue, and the crew strapped themselves into their seats. Flashes of light heralded the conforming helmets materializing over their heads. _Apollo_'s shields snapped into full power, weapons were charged and the crews manning the missile tubes armed their payloads.

"All decks report General quarters!"

"Weps, status?" Ellis snapped.

"All neutron cannons are in the green, sir, and tracking, Interceptor grid is online, AHM1Cs are hot in the tubes," the Weapon officer reported.

"Then let's give these genocidal SOBs a nice warm reception."

888888888888888888

A/N: Finally! Hope you enjoyed this one. Sorry that my muse has been taking me to different places recently, not to mention that my job has recently given me less time to write…hence, the slower update pace.


	42. Chapter 42

_**Chapter 42**__ – __**Life**___

**Conference Room, Atlantis, Pegasus Galaxy**

"We've received a new directive from the STO Council yesterday," General Theron tented her hands on the large table and looked at her command staff. "They want to maximise the use of the Earth ZPM; as such, barring strategic emergencies, from now on we will only be receiving resupply wormholes every month, instead of weekly. This means that we have to be more self-sufficient."

"What about wormholes from us?" Colonel MacTavish asked with a frown.

"That remains unchanged, once a week we establish a connection with Earth for data exchange and any personnel that must return for whatever reason arises. So, as Napoleon said, 'An army marches on its stomach'; we need to establish our own food production."

"To that end, Earth has shipped through seedlings of the plants that produce the major foodgroups, not to mentions tons of fertile soil, a team of farmers and all the equipment that goes with them."

"Can Atlantis even have a farm?" Major Sheppard asked incredulously.

"Of course," Captain Herodotus was nonplussed, "how did you think we fed ourselves during the last Wraith Siege ten thousand years ago?"

"I thought you used some type of artificial matter synthesis, working from pure energy…oh."

"As Major Sheppard has finally realized," Herodotus said amused, "we needed all of Atlantis' power for its defences and couldn't spare any for food synthesis. Hence, that's why the south-east pier has large depressed sections and not a lot of buildings…soil can be deposited there and there are already irrigation, fertilizer and solar energy systems in place. Now we don't have the Wraith pounding on the City Shield, so theoretically could use the food synthesis systems, but it would represent a marked increase in power consumption to provide food three times a day for over fifteen hundred people. So this has to be done the more traditional and conservative way."

"My people wish to begin contributing to Atlantis," Teyla announced at this point, "they are starting to feel…I believe the Earth term is…cabin fever. While the children are in the…academy you have recently started, their parents are becoming weary of the inactivity."

"You wish them to work in food production?" General Theron raised her eyebrows.

"It is something they _can_ do very well, and perhaps they can learn more from your own farmers."

"Very well," Theron's lips thinned, "however, emphasise that it is their _choice_ to work on the farm. If they don't wish to I'm sure we can find something productive for them to participate in and agree on some form of acceptable remuneration."

"Thank you, General."

"Projections indicate that the soonest we can harvest will be four months," Herodotus looked at his Tablet PC. "We're looking at a food shortage at that rate."

"That's why I'm ordering our teams to approach local Pegasus human populations to trade with for food." Theron turned to Teyla. "Do you know of any planets that can help us?"

"I know of perhaps four worlds, all my people have done trading with them before and they should be amenable to us. The most promising I think would be the Genii, but…"

"Is there a problem Teyla?"

She looked tentatively at everyone in the room. "As a people the Genii are very cautious and wary, a necessity in the Pegasus Galaxy. Their trust was hard earned on my part, I would have to approach them openly, without the alien disguise and we must go on foot…the Puddle Jumper would alarm them."

Everyone exchanged worried glances. Finally General Theron spoke up, "Are you willing to be openly identified as having knowledge of us? If that were to get back to the Wraith…"

"I understand the risks," Teyla nodded. "But a mission to the Genii would not succeed without it."

"Very well, give those gate addresses to Colonel MacTavish, thank you, Teyla."

* * *

><p><strong>Genii Homeworld, Pegasus Galaxy<strong>

John Sheppard and his team emerged from the local Stargate to find themselves in an area that could be straight out of the farmlands of the US; flat grassland as far as the eye could see that was only broken up by clumps and on occasion orderly rows of green trees that divided the fields from each other. The brisk sun overhead was blazing down on the distant crops that were just in view.

He glanced at his team and had to resist the urge to order Teyla to cover her exposed head.

"Alright, Teyla…where to?"

"We should allow them to come to us…"

"If you know where the village is…shouldn't we…" John proposed.

"They are a simple people and as I said, their trust was hard earned." She said reassuringly.

"Okay," John conceded reluctantly.

"What is it you said they grew here anyway?" Rodney turned around curiously, surveying the area.

"Many things, but they are best known for a bean known as Tava."

"How do they even know we're here anyway?" Ford pointed out.

"They already do," Teyla gestured to a nearby row of trees, from where a man and woman appeared, dressed in the rugged apparel of country farmers; the man with thick trousers, overalls and boots, whilst his younger companion wore a long heavy dress with white apron over it. Both looked very fit and had a kind of grim air about them that tweaked at John's senses.

"They look friendly enough," he commented wryly.

"The eldest one is Tirus," Teyla explained. "I have traded with him on many occasions."

The man in question and his younger female companion stopped a few meters away and in greeting said, "Teyla Emmagan."

"Tirus," she grinned, "it has been many days."

"Too many," Tirus acknowledged.

"Teyla," greeted the woman. John saw Teyla's smile become rather forced at that point.

"Sora," she nodded. "These are a people I have come to know well and trust. They are explorers to our Galaxy and call themselves Terrans. This is Major Sheppard, Doctor McKay and Lieutenant Ford."

"Rare to see such an advanced alien people here," commented Tirus.

"It seems so," agreed John.

"They have come to trade a share of your crops," Teyla explained, getting to the point.

"Yet you bring weapons," Sora pointed to the PR8s.

"Only to defend ourselves," Ford countered.

"You wear their dress and carry their weapons of your own accord?" Tirus asked suspiciously.

"Of course…why?" Teyla frowned.

"He wants to know if you work with us…or for us," John explained knowingly, he hoped the voice distorter didn't blur his tone.

"Ah…These are my friends, Tirus. I would not have brought them if I did not think them worthy to become yours."

"We'll take you to see Kalan," Tirus looked meaningfully at Sora.

"Follow me," the younger Genii said, and lead them away from the Stargate, Tirus stayed behind to take the rear. Rodney fell into step next to John and activated the private team link.

"_Maybe we should offer a sense of humor in trade_," he laughed.

"_Sure, they can have yours_," John retorted with amusement.

"_Ah, ah ha ha ha, oh please my side…you slay me…what the!…_"

"_What is it?"_ John asked, seeing that Rodney had visibly hesitated a step before shaking himself and continuing on.

"_Uh, Teyla said these people were just simple farmers, an Agrarian Civ, didn't she?"_

"_Yes…so?"_

"_Well, my AI just informed me that it detected a radio transmission…from Tirus."_

"_What?"_ John mentally asked his own AI and it confirmed. _"I didn't see a radio on him?"_

"_Which means it must be very small, you know what that implies?"_

"_The Genii are not what they seem."_

* * *

><p>The team was led into a wooden house of what seemed to be traditional construction, yet was at the moment flung open and rather airy, so that light spilled in from all sides and to allow the cool breeze to sweep through. The four of them sat on the opposite side of table from Kalan. He also wore rugged clothes, but these were not for farming; had John not been wise to it, he would've sworn Kalan had just came out of a saloon in the Old West.<p>

The fact that they had EM radio meant that the Genii were clearly 'pretending' to not be as advanced as they were. Something which John knew was rather prudent in the Pegasus Galaxy when it came to avoiding the Wraith. He had debated with himself on whether to call Kalan on it; but since he was the 'Leader' of the Genii, that would not be a good idea. The Genii valued their privacy, just as they did their own; if he violated that there was no telling what the locals would do to maintain that secret.

So John had made the decision and through the team link told the other to play along, unfortunately, Teyla was none the wiser at the moment and had to be kept that way.

"And these medicines are cold?" Kalan's somewhat chubby face frowned in confusion under his short curly hair.

"It's just an expression," Rodney explained. "They are capable of stopping bacterial infections entirely."

"It will help us through a harsh winter…" Sora conceded.

"Mmmmm…we will need more than you offer," Kalan eventually declared, his eyes pensive.

"More?" John said a bit incredulously.

"I don't think you understand what a difference this medicine will make," Ford pointed out.

"Well…leave if you wish then," Kalan smirked.

"I thought you said the Genii were fair traders," John grumbled at Teyla.

"We have always been able to achieve a…reasonable bargain," she replied delicately.

"You ask for…much of our harvest. New crops will have to be planted in sufficient quantities to replenish our stores…or it is the Genii who will starve. That amount of planting will require new land to be cleared. Clearing more land is slow, hard work and it will lose us an amount of growing time…between now…and the next harvest season," Kalan explained stoutly.

"I see," John nodded but then an idea occurred to him. "But what if clearing land was fast and easy?"

Kalan and Tirus laughed.

"I suspect you do have such ways of easily removing the stump of a three hundred year old tree, but are there any that would be within our reach to use and comprehend?"

"As a matter of fact, we do."

8888888888888888

John watched as Lieutenant Ford calmly and professionally stuck a hand sized block of C4 onto a large stump just a few hundred meters away from the Genii village. The team, Kalan, Tirus, Sora and small crowd of others were at a safe distance waiting for the demonstration. Finally Ford seemed satisfied with the placement of the explosives, carefully pushed a detonator into the C4 and armed it, where immediately it started to flash tiny red LEDs to warn that it was active.

Ford jogged back fluidly.

"You will need to cover your ears!" John called to everyone.

"I don't understand," Kalan shook his head.

"It'll be quite loud," John nodded at Ford who materialized his remote detonator. "Come on…you're gonna wish you did," he encouraged, as the people hesitantly propped fingers into their ears. "Lieutenant, by all means."

"Yes, sir!" Ford's alien visage grinned noticeably behind his helmet and lifted the safety catch. "Fire in the hole!"

Everyone besides the Terrans flinched at the sudden and rapid BOOM that reverberated everywhere…the explosion blossomed oddly due to the stump initially channelling the rapidly expanding gasses but the old natural structure couldn't take it for more than a moment and was transformed into kindling and small splinters of wood that streaked in every direction.

The villagers all stared in shock as the smoke cleared with pieces of shattered wood still raining down for a few seconds afterwards. The stump was gone, as were most of the deep roots.

"It's called C4," Ford explained with satisfaction, closing his remote detonator and putting it back in his suit's matter storage.

"If you can supply us with sufficient quantity of C4," Kalan said eventually, his eyes eager. "We will supply you with the crop you require."

"So, this instead of medicine?" John asked for clarification.

"As well as the medicine."

"Really? That wasn't impressive enough?" He gestured to the small crater where the stump had been.

"It is you who are in need," Kalan reiterated.

John thought about this for a moment. "I'll need to discuss this with my people."

"I'm sure we can come to terms. Teyla! Thank you for bringing us these new trading partners. Please…stay as our guests. There will be a harvest ceremony later…"

"Wonderful," Teyla nodded with a pleased smile as the villagers walked back to their daily lives.

"Ford…" John turned to the young Lieutenant.

"Sir?"

"We're talking harvest ceremony, you up to it?"

"Sounds like fun, sir."

"I'll be back soon, Rodney you're with me," he nodded at the scientist, before heading off in the direction of the Stargate.

* * *

><p><strong>Commander's Office, Stargate Ops, Atlantis<strong>

"So let me get this straight," General Theron drummed her fingers on the desk thoughtfully. "These farmers, who we aren't sure, are _actually_ farmers, want medicine and a veritable truckload of C4 for the express purpose of clearing stumps…in trade for a percentage of their crop."

"That's the bottom line, yes ma'am," John nodded.

"What did you make of that radio signal you picked up, Dr McKay?"

"I've, uh, analyzed it and it seems fairly advanced, it was a modulated digital frequency, had a one twenty eight bit encryption…I easily brute forced it with our hardware…" Rodney tapped his Tablet PC and a voice that John recognized as Tirus' spoke. '_Bring in the men, all operations to silent mode_.' "That's all there was."

"Well, it seems the Genii are playing at smoke and mirrors, that transmission had _military_ radio discipline all over it," she deduced immediately. "What do you think, Major?"

"There's a possibility they might just be using the radio's second hand, and don't really know how to make their own…Teyla has that laser lighter and the Athosians sure as a sunrise didn't make that gizmo."

"Quite right," conceded Theron. "This just doesn't feel like it though…the attitude in that voice, that was not just some farmer speaking on a gizmo he doesn't understand."

"Hmmm, they didn't really have the right…feel of a farmer," Rodney commented absently.

"And just how would a _real_ farmer feel, Dr McKay?" Theron's lips twitched in amusement.

"Uh…ah…I-I wouldn't really know, it's just Kalan…oh well," Rodney sighed, visibly unburdening himself, "I've started to get flashes of Telepathy or Legillim…whatever…and uh, I got the distinct impression that Kalan wasn't just after the C4 for stump clearing."

"Does Dr Granger know?" Theron asked sharply.

"Yeah, I went to her a week ago, been getting lessons to control it."

"Good," she turned back to John, "Major, tell the Genii we agree to the trade, but I think we must do some undetected recon into this situation as well."

* * *

><p><strong>Genii Homeworld<strong>

She exited the Stargate barely a moment after Major Shepard and Dr McKay, she was both invisible and intangible without using any of her own power; thanks to a modified Tollan phase shift device stuck to her shoulder. She quickly stepped away from the event horizon and calmly watched as the Gate disengaged and the two men headed back to the Genii village.

She raised her Hand Scanner and began to sweep for any radio signals or indication of power signatures. No radio signals but a there was a faint trace of…gamma radiation?

Orientating herself in its direction she began walking towards it.

Fifteen minutes later she was standing outside a small hut just outside a copse of trees. She walked straight through the door and regarded a straw covered floor. To one corner the straw was piled up to hip height. The faint gamma rays were coming from inside it. She tapped her Phase device, deactivating her intangibility, and then made a sweeping gesture with her hand…

The straw was abruptly swept away.

'_Ah ha,' _she thought.

A steel hatch, surrounded by concrete was jutting out of the earth. A glance at her Scanner showed that there was trip switch that would no doubt tell a central system that the hatch opened. No problem. Stepping onto the hatch, she activated her intangibility but manipulated the field towards her feet briefly enough so that gravity pulled her through the hatch, and just as quickly renormalized it so she landed on the floor two meters beneath it.

She tuned the vision systems in her chromesuit to work in the infrared spectrum and regarded a structurally advanced bunker. Her scanner was now picking up neutron radiation as well, coming from a powerful energy source.

'_These Genii are quickly climbing up the tech tree_,' she mused.

Walking down the long corridor, she walked through another steel door, and again the rad level increased…she was infinitely glad that the chromesuit was greatly capable of protecting her from ionizing radiation. She went down a long flight of winding stairs and walked through another door and gasped.

Beyond was a huge subterranean cavern with various buildings ranging in height from single floor to fifteen, which towered all the way to the rocky ceiling, people were milling about moving from building to building, seemingly going about their daily lives.

An entire subterranean human society.

'_Oh the General is gonna love this.'_

* * *

><p><strong>Conference Room, Stargate Ops, Atlantis<strong>

"They're building an atomic bomb," Dr. Hermione Granger said simply to the assembled Command staff. "Or should I say, more like attempting it."

"Hence their reason for wanting so much C4," Colonel MacTavish scowled.

"How close are they?" Dr McKay asked curiously.

"I'm not exactly a nuclear physicist," Hermione pointed out, "you can look at the footage my Chromesuit AI recorded, but I think they're running into super-criticality problems and their methods for Uranium enrichment need a lot of work. Not to mention they don't seem to yet understand the long-term effects of ionizing radiation – their shielding was woefully inadequate, I doubt their scientists will survive long enough to see the project to its end."

"Did you uncover their objective in building the atomic weapon?" Herodotus asked seriously.

"They want to deliver the bombs to sleeping Wraith ships that are on the ground."

"There are two obvious and big problems with that," General Theron pointed out. "They'd need Wraith ship locations and the Wraith aren't sleeping anymore. Did you see any indication that they possessed spacecraft?"

"No," Hermione shook her head. "From what I saw and deduced from their minds is that their true scientific and technological understanding is roughly where Earth was in the Fourties. However, they did know the location of one Wraith Hive; Intelligence which they apparently got from a salvaged Dart's data module that they shot down…and yes, I scanned it and have a copy."

Theron smirked at Hermione's forethought and pre-empting the question that had been on the tip of MacTavish' tongue. "All right, we now know the general situation. We have a subterranean society of humans in the early stages of their own Manhattan Project, what are your thoughts? Do we help them overtly?"

"They'll not think the world of us, blowing their secrecy," MacTavish shook his head. "It's their way of life, their shield against the Wraith. From the sounds of Dr Granger's report, I doubt they'll be above killing to protect their secret."

"What about covert help?"

"That's possible," Dr McKay pointed out. "We could infiltrate again and give the scientists some sort of subtle hint to get them going the right direction."

"That would not be wise," Herodotus disagreed, "accelerating their atomic program will not achieve anything if they have no reliable delivery means. They still think the Wraith are in hibernation...they'll be captured in the attempt to deliver their bomb and then the Genii's true development level is revealed and they will be completely exterminated. As it is, the C4 will have already sped up the program to an extent."

"What about at least warning them of the new Wraith disposition?" Hermione proposed.

"Wraith technology in a broad sense is inferior to our own, but they can and will detect the same radiation signature you found Dr Granger," Herodotus said darkly. "That is the best option I see and it will at least preserve the Genii culture until our own plans against the Wraith can come to fruition."

"I agree," Theron nodded. "Though I think we can do a little bit more…one of our cloaked COSUS satellites in orbit and we provide the Genii with a secure access terminal. That should also give them ample warning time of approaching Wraith ships from space as well."

"That'd give 'em a chance," nodded MacTavish. "We'd have to communicate with them from the _Briseus_ in hologram form, to remove the temptation to attack us."

"It's decided, make it happen."

8888888888888888888

**Interstellar Space, 2000 LY Rimward** **of Terra, Milky Way**

_Apollo _was a ship that had been designed firmly with the notion that space was a three dimensional plain where there was no up, down, left or right, and that such concepts only belonged on a planet. No matter which angle on the three Cartesian planes you approached the warship from there would always be a weapon staring you in the face, ready to atomize you for so much as daring to look at the ship in the wrong way.

Which was why, when the Aschen cruiser dropped out of a Hyperspace window ten thousand kilometres negative z-axis from the _Apollo _that all her ventral Neutron cannons had hard targeting solutions on the enemy ship in an instant.

When the Tollan engineers on Luna had been approached with the data behind the weak performance of the standard particle cannons against Anubis refit Goa'uld shielding, they looked at it for an hour and simply declared that it wasn't a matter of the weapon itself but more _what_ it was firing.

It seemed a paradoxical concept at first. It was an energy weapon after all, but from another point of view it was just like a much more sophisticated rail gun. It did fire objects with mass out of it after all…on the subatomic scale of course. So the engineers decided to look towards the most powerful energy source on the ship…the two NAMA Fusion Reactors, and designed a weapon that could channel the high energy neutrons that they released towards the particle throwers without having to go through the complicated conversion processes that most normal ship systems required.

Colonel Ellis had debated with himself for a few brief seconds on whether or not to start these _negotiations_ by making the token effort of sending a message to the Aschen cruiser asking their intentions and making Terra's wish for peaceful coexistence known to them. He dismissed the idea in a second…most of the world hadn't wanted to coexist with Hitler in the Fourties, and Ellis doubted any Terran citizen would hesitate to push the big red button on the Aschen in a second after all the facts were put on the table.

"Open fire as she bears," he ordered.

_Apollo_ sent sixteen beams of contained Fusion neutron energy all at once into the Aschen ship, to the eye; it had looked like Apollo had just drawn thick neon yellow lines to connect it to the enemy cruiser, whose shields flared violently as it struggled to bleed off the energy and resist penetration.

It managed…just, but lost almost forty percent integrity in their shield matrix in the process. It responded by turning as fast as possible to bring its fore energy weapon armament to bear and sent bolt after bolt of green omicron radiation streaking towards the _Apollo._

The Terran ship had not been idle and didn't just sit around to take this incoming punishment on it own shields. _Apollo_ had completed a snap-roll to present all the dorsal cannons, allowing the ventral Neutron cannons to cool down, whilst its Phalanx Interceptor Grid came online.

Here the true power of quantum computing was finally realized. The Interceptor sensors tracked every single bolt of incoming energy, calculated its respective course and impact point on _Apollo_…all within a less than a microsecond and orientated an optimally located gattling Plasma cannon to fire a stream of specifically tuned phase modulated bolts into the path of the enemy fire.

It was but one cannon in an entire grid that ran like a network of veins all over the _Apollo_, and the battlespace between the two ships was deluged in a storm of Plasma fire, with individual bolts roughly the size of a football. Where omicron bolt met plasma, space flared with bursts of uncontrolled energy release.

The Phalanx Grid also had the knock on effect that if a bolt missed, it would still continue on and hit the enemy. It wouldn't do that much relative damage, but it was still the death of a thousand cuts. The rate of Omicron fire from the Aschen quadrupled and it fired more of its own cannon in an attempt to get through. It was only partially successful as a few hits splashed off the Apollo's shields, reducing it to ninety three percent integrity.

Another salvo of Neutron fire leapt across space at relativistic speed, pushing the recovering Aschen shields down to forty percent.

"Roll us around and lets open up the range a bit more, Helm, relative hundred thousand k," Ellis commanded.

"Sir, enemy shields are recharging at a very fast rate, more so than we are capable of," his Science Officer pronounced over the rumble of the Apollo's firing weaponry that transmitted through the hull and bulkheads.

"Understood," Ellis said; his heart racing despite appearing outwardly calm. He peered at the status displays mounted in his own chair. "I want a multi-vector launch of all port missiles. Let's see if that beast has any point defence."

All along the port hull blade of Apollo, fifteen AHM1C missiles launched out and their small gravitic engines ramped up to full acceleration, turning sharply out of the engagement envelope between to two ships, and then arced toward the Aschen cruiser.

The missiles began to jink and weave in erratic patterns relative to the enemy, rapidly closing the distance.

The Cruiser's own Omicron fire was abruptly diverted to engage the missiles; their extremely high energy signatures had almost flash blinded the enemy sensors as they reached their detonation coordinates. Nine of the missiles were intercepted, but their focused Naquadria/Francium cores detonated anyway, creating small brief suns in the battlespace.

The remaining five bracketed the enemy ship and in a move that even had Ellis impressed by its ingenuity; the Cruiser opened a modulated hyperspace window directly in the remaining missiles path that sucked them in like a vacuum cleaner.

Two million kilometres away the missiles reappeared and promptly turned around to head back, but it was futile, their drives burned out and they were turned into ballistic projectiles…the safeties detonated them after their displacement clocks reached a million k.

"Make a note of that defence trick, Weps," Ellis grumbled with reluctant admiration.

"Yes, Sir," the Weapons officer responded as he triggered off another Neutron cannon salvo.

"Enemy shields to twenty percent."

"Fire starboard missile salvo, program half to attack from above, the other from below."

"Yes, sir. Missiles targeting, course laid in…firing and away." More shudders ran through the hull.

"Our shield strength is at sixty percent and falling steadily Colonel. Eighteen percent of incoming fire is making it through the Phalanx envelope."

"Let's hope they can't do that hyperspace defence trick again."

"I doubt they can, Colonel," Harry declared from the Science station, staring intently at the screens. "Not so quickly, anyway."

The Aschen Cruiser turned on a new course that presented its aft section towards Apollo, and started to open the range between the ships ever further. Finally, a single missile made it through its defences, a bright flash heralded its directed detonation into the shields of the Cruiser.

"Their shields are almost down."

The Cruiser promptly vanished into a Hyperspace window. Muted hisses and fists punching the air in celebration followed from the Bridge crew. Harry doubted a commanding officer like Ellis would tolerate more overt ventings of emotion from his crew.

"Did we send them packing?" Ellis asked

"Negative, sir. They're still in sensor range, they made a tactical hyperspace jump straight towards the Nebula we were going to explore," replied the Science Officer, a few moments later and… "They've entered it, Sir."

"Why wouldn't they just stay in Hyperspace and keep going?" the Master and Commander of _Apollo_ mused.

"One reason is that we've lost them on sensors, Colonel," Harry explained. "They're hiding, licking their wounds."

"I think it's more than that, Sir," Major Carter spoke up. "Assuming their Hyperdrive is somewhat comparable to our own, then it was a bit of a gamble to open a Window in the manner they did to swallow our missiles…in the context of a long battle. It could be that they're having re-calibration issues to return the Drive's subspace geometries into a normal alignment to go over their hull. That short jump was probably all they could risk without checking that the geometries are all in alignment."

"So you're telling me they could've killed themselves by going into Hyperspace so soon after doing that HS shield?" Ellis queried with raised eyebrows.

"Spectacularly, sir," she said earnestly. "I doubt there'd be anything left of that ship bigger than my fist."

"Well, whoever that Aschen Captain is, he or she's got a pair," Ellis declared. "Helm, set course for the Nebula, and give me a similar short hop in Hyper to get us there."

"Colonel, I don't think it's a good idea to go into this Nebula after them," Harry shook his head, coming to stand next to the Commander's chair.

"Do you care to elaborate on that assertion, _Commodore_?"

Harry inwardly bristled at Ellis' emphasis of his rank, not so subtly reminding him that while he outranked the Colonel, he was not Captain of the ship and couldn't order Ellis to actually do anything.

"This Nebula has unknown properties; properties that we now know affects subspace in a manner we haven't determined yet. Blundering into it when we don't how it will possibly affect the ship's systems is not…wise."

"Do I need to remind you Commodore, of the consequences should the Aschen cruiser escape and return with data and knowledge of our ships capabilities, not to mention the fact that the COSUS net exists."

"We should _want_ them to go back with the former, _Colonel_." Harry retorted. "But their knowledge and scans of our COSUS deployment can't make it back to the Confederation. What I'm saying is we can keep the _Apollo_ at the edge of the Nebula and send one of the spare satellites into the place as a probe. If it isn't affected then we can go in after the Aschen, though only after we've determined that we won't ignite any volatiles firing weapons in there."

Ellis frowned severely for a moment, "You make a good point."

A quick two seconds of Hyperspace was enough to get _Apollo_ to the very edge of the Nebula. Harry, Sam and Apollo's own Science Officer was hard at work using every scanning system the ship had on the Nebula, while the Launch Bay prepared another COSUS sat for launch and modifying its gravitic thrusters, normally used for stationkeeping, to act more in the manner of a missile.

"Any sign the Aschen have left the Nebula?" Ellis asked after a few hours of waiting for the techs to finish.

"None, sir."

"Very well, Launch Bay, deploy our probe."

"_Yes, sir."_

"We have probe telemetry and control," announced Sam.

The satellite/probe coasted at a leisurely sedate pace of just one G of acceleration and after ten minutes it breached into the Nebula perimeter. They got barely a few seconds of data when…

"Probe telemetry via subspace lost…trying STL radio…hmm, we've got it back," Harry mused on that. He blinked in astonishment at the data it was now sending.

"What?" Sam was baffled. "How is that possible?"

"What is it?" Ellis demanded.

"The probe is stuck," Harry declared.

"Stuck," replied the Colonel flatly.

"Its gravitic thrusters just give me an error, that it can't initialize for an unknown reason, it's also been…stopped, shed all its momentum."

"There's only one way that can happen, seeing as the COSUS sats never needed an inertia dampening system; Newton's Third," Ellis affirmed.

"There could be someone else in the Nebula," the Science Officer theorized.

"Possible, but if they're using any form of STL propulsion similar to our own, they would be stuck too…and if I interpret this data correctly…opening a HS window in there would be bad if not impossible."

"So the Aschen are stuck too?"

"Yes, their Reactionless Drive would do no better," Harry nodded.

"_Apollo_ wouldn't get anywhere then, either," Ellis sighed in frustration. "Can you make heads or tails of this Nebula yet?"

"There are some pretty exotic gasses inside, so exotic that our scanners just spit back 'unknown' at me," Sam folded her arms glaring at the various holoscreens. "It could be a property of one of these gasses that it somehow inhibits major subspace manipulating systems."

"Figure out a way to get us in there and out, that's an order."

Harry and Sam gave each other knowing looks, as they left the Bridge for one of the astro-science labs. "I know we're both in the military," he shook his head in disgust, "but that sort of mindset...complaining about us scientists, shoot first, and when that doesn't work, come running to us…ohhh, it just gets my back up."

"Tell me about it," Sam sighed. "At least you have the flag rank to call the 'brass' on it."

* * *

><p><strong>Astro-Physics Lab 2, TSS <strong>_**Apollo**_

Harry and Sam stood in front one of the large new holo-walls that dominated one side of Astro-physics Lab 2; it was essentially a super-sized holoscreen that also allowed for interactivity with the operators fingers. Their fingers tapped simulated buttons and their hands grabbed other smaller holoscreens to the fore to observe simulations and then just as quickly the other hand would give a wiping gesture and the screen would vanish.

Colonel Ellis entered the Lab and in his wake trailed the rest of SG1.

"It's been six hours, what do you have?"

"What we have…" Harry sighed and gave another wiping gesture to the holowall, following it up by grabbing the form of a virtual file, which exploded in size and displayed a simulation of the Nebula with all sorts of data scrolling in smaller windows at various points.

"Sweet toy," Jack smirked, "should get one for my living room."

Harry gave the man a beady eye "…what we have, is a plan to get in and out of the Nebula."

"I'm sensing a big 'but' at the end of that statement," Ellis observed.

"Yes," Harry nodded. "The gasses in this _Nebula _are amazing; we're going to have to update the periodic table…again. This stuff would even go straight through our Shields with no problem; their individual particulates are unaffected by graviton distortion. The only way to protect ourselves would be to partially engage the Hyperdrive to encase us in a subspace bubble, only pushing us a few degrees into subspace…we'll be totally unaffected by anything in real space. We can go straight through the Nebula no problem."

"That sounds good," Ellis nodded. "But…"

"We wouldn't be able to fire weapons…" Sam explained. "Neutron and Plasma energy would disrupt the integrity of the subspace bubble, the same goes for missiles. We'd re-emerge into normal space in the middle of the Nebula."

"Not to mention I doubt _it'_d be happy with us literally fighting in its belly," Harry crossed his arms and flashed a glare Sam's way.

"_Its_?" A chorus of astonished replies came from Daniel, Ellis and Jack, whilst Teal'C just raised an eyebrow.

"This is _not _just a Nebula," Harry said flatly. His hands moved on the holowall and the view was now from within the 'Nebula'. He also pulled up another screen which showed a field of green, orange and blue molecules that arced energy towards one another. "It's in fact a space-dwelling sentient organism."

"You're kidding?" Daniel came forward eagerly taking in the view.

"The enhanced scan you see here, came from the probe…these energy discharges are occurring in a unique pattern, not entirely unlike brainwaves."

"Commodore," Ellis blinked and seemed to struggle with the very idea, "how…that's…"

"I realize this is way out of your experience," Harry sympathized. "But Earth's travels have been limited to the Stargate network and we've only recently begun fielding ships to travel beyond that. Suffice it to say, it's a big Galaxy and carbon based life is not the only type to exist."

"But something as hostile as space to call home?" Jack shook his head in amazement.

"'There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy'," Daniel said with wonder.

"Very relevant quote," Harry nodded with a smile.

"Okay, say for a moment I accept this…" Ellis frowned at the holowall. "How would this be relevant to our Aschen problem?"

"Well, I'd say in less than two days there won't be one anymore," Harry grinned and turned to Sam. "Bring up the probe diagnostic."

Sam waved her hands and a cross diagram of the probe appeared. Several areas of the probe were highlighted in angry red, but most significant of all.

"Its hull is being corroded," Ellis interpreted the screen rather quickly.

"At this rate, the probe will be destroyed in less than ten hours," she reported. "Some of the gasses clearly have properties that eat away at the thin hull…and it does somewhat support the idea that this is a lifeform."

"So all we do is maintain a sensor overwatch, in case the Aschen figures the way out, and let the…lifeform do the work for us." Ellis rubbed his brow musingly.

"Essentially," confirmed Harry. "This thing is a few light-years across in size; it should handle the Aschen power core breaching no problem."

"Would be the equivalent of a small ulcer for this thing," Jack commented.

"Will we be able to get confirmation of the Aschen's destruction?"

"The cruiser exploding should react like throwing a stone in a pond, that'll be visible on the exterior of the Lifeform. We could also send in another probe to the general coordinates where the Aschen breached the perimeter, with its phase cloak activated, it should protect it from the Lifeform," Sam proposed.

"Well done, both of you," Ellis nodded at Harry and Sam. "I don't really like the idea of sitting on our hands, but doing otherwise it seems will only result in giving the Aschen the idea of how to leave."

"I'm sure we can find things to occupy ourselves with while we wait," Jack pointed out, looking at Sam significantly.

"Yes, sir," she quirked her mouth with a restrained smile.

"Commodore, how about a few spars to loosen up the old muscles. I'm sure Teal'C is dying to have a go at you again."

The big Jaffa just gave one of his broad grins and bowed.

"I've been getting a little rusty," Harry smirked.

One day, sixteen hours later the signs appeared…the Lifeform rippled in waves before settling into relative normality. The probe had managed to record the event of the cruiser's rather spectacular demise…it was fitting in a way, that the Aschen; who had purposefully exterminated and reduced a entire races to a mere handful via disease and sterilization for their own selfish gain would be destroyed in a such a manner…by the inner workings of a giant lifeform.

* * *

><p><strong>Conference Room 1, SGC, Earth, Milky Way Galaxy<strong>

"The effect of Earth's decimation of Anubis' Tartarus Base and Kull Warrior production facility has not had the effect we hoped for," Jonas Quinn, host to Kanan of the Tok'ra, explained to the assembled brass of the SGC and General Thompson.

"We nuked over a thousand of Anubis' goons, totalled his 'Secret Volcano Lair' with him inside I might add," Jack said incredulously, "and you're telling me it achieved nothing in the strategic sense?"

"I wouldn't say that," Jonas said half-warily, "it's certainly stalled and reduced the scope of the Kull Warrior attacks that are occurring now across the Galaxy on the various System Lords."

"Anubis isn't stupid enough to have put all his eggs in one basket," Harry shook his head.

"Yes," nodded Jonas, "we estimate that Anubis must have at least another Kull production facility similar in size to Tartarus hidden somewhere else in the Galaxy. And as we well know, Anubis can't be harmed in any known conventional sense. One of his Ha'taks picked his incorporeal form up after a few days, and while no Tok'ra has gotten close enough to report on his condition yet, orders in his name started going out throughout his holdings about three weeks ago."

"Where are we on finding a practical countermeasure to the Kull, Commodore?" General Thompson turned to Harry.

"General Carter and his daughter are at Delta Site currently working on a prototype Kull Disruptor," he thumbed a remote and the large holoscreen showed a graphical representation of the device in question.

"Rather small," Jack commented with a frown.

"The Disruptor is a module designed to be attached to PR7 and 8s, it will become an alternate fire mode on our main infantry weapon," Harry explained. "The Disruptor's nature is that it cancels out the animation energy that is used to produce a Kull Warrior in the lab."

"Wouldn't it just get absorbed by the Kull's armor, just like any other weapon?" Hammond queried.

"Yes, and that's exactly what we want. The energy is stored in the Kull Armor's energy sinks, and there it begins to radiate at the precise frequency needed directly into the body of Warrior, which will render it lifeless in short order."

"Ingenius," Thompson mused, "you've turned the strongest advantage of the armour into its greatest weakness, and its barely been a month since our first encounter with the Kull."

"Credit goes to Major Carter," Harry smiled mildly, "I just helped with the practical design elements."

The base alarm klaxon signalling an incoming wormhole blared at this moment, followed by Master Sergeant Davis voice announcing a Code Red.

"General?" Hammond turned to his superior.

"Don't mind me, George, get to it. Everyone dismissed."

The room burst into action.

8888888

In the Control Room, Harry saw that the Stargate Defenses were all on, but that there was incoming transmission on an SGC frequency.

"Report," ordered Hammond.

"Incoming Code Red transmission from Echo Site, General," Davis said grimly. A holoscreen flared into existence over the main consoles and the grim, dirty visage of an SGC Colonel greeted them.

"Colonel Reilly," Hammond jerked in surprise. "What are you doing at Echo?"

"_Twenty minutes ago, Sir, Delta was attacked by a squadron of Goa'uld Al'kesh and Kull Warriors. We were forced to set the self-destruct and evacuate. Only half of us made it through before the wormhole connection was disrupted by a direct attack on the Delta Stargate_."

Harry felt like his blood had turned to ice at what he was hearing; that meant forty people were missing, possibly dead.

"Colonel, did the Carters make it through?" Hammond's tone for all it's neutrality was about as grim as Harry had ever heard.

"_No sir_," Reilly reported, his jaw flexing in anger. "_From reports I've managed to gather from my personnel who witnessed it, a Kull Warrior attacked their lab directly. They managed to get past it somehow and were in the line of evacuees running through the Gate…but because of their delay…they were near the back. Sir, the only reason I'm alive now is because my XO forcibly threw me through the event horizon when we saw the Al'kesh doing a bombing run targeted at the Gate…I...I was the last through…"_

"Understood Colonel," Hammond sighed. "We'll begin S immediately."

"_Request permission to join the search teams, sir."_

"Denied, Colonel. I know how you feel…but your people there at Echo need you and you're in no shape to possibly go toe-to-toe with Kull Warriors."

"_Yes sir_," acknowledged the Colonel reluctantly.

"Disengage wormhole, and dial Delta Site immediately, Sergeant. Send a MALP."

The Stargate snapped off with a _woosh_ and immediately began accelerated dialling. As the hovering Mark 2 MALP was readied by the standby technicians, Harry slammed his restrained fist in anger on the console. "How in the name of Creation did Anubis find the location of Delta Site? It's an address that _we_ created; it's not on the Goa'uld list, the planet is not even on the Ancient list."

"That is something I'm going to find out," Hammond said with a grim determination.

"Chevron Seven locked," the wormhole to Delta Site _kawooshed_ into existence with its usual spectacular flare of energy. Sergeant Davis ran a radio and subspace com sweep, putting a finger into his earpiece briefly. "Stable wormhole, no chatter, sir."

"Send the MALP

The machine in question rose higher into the air, in line with the event horizon and crossed into it at a cautiously sedate pace with Sergeant Davis at the controls.

"Receiving telemetry."

Harry blinked at the holoscreen which showed the MALP video feed, it was oddly tilted; showing a pile of rocks and the event horizon of the Delta Gate looming large in the picture.

"Sir, my instruments are telling me that the MALP is on its side. Attempting to correct orientation."

"If the Stargate was knocked over and is lying face down on the ground, the forming of the event horizon would have excavated a cavity underneath it. The MALP came through, and fell into the hole," Daniel deduced, as Sergeant Davis gingerly fiddled with the control joystick.

"There is no way to know if the DHD survived the attack then," Hammond shook his head.

"If we were to bring an alternate power source we could dial out manually," Teal'C suggested stoically.

"Possibly under enemy fire," the General pointed out.

"We'll be fine, sir," Jack said intently. "The Gate dug the perfect foxhole."

"We must also prepare for the possibility that there are Kull Warriors that survived the self-destruct of Delta Base, General," Harry spoke up. "I suggest we send a Darkstar drone through armed with Phoenix Missiles; after we've righted the Gate. If we find any Kulls, we can laser designate them as targets from a safe distance."

"You heard the man, Sergeant."

"Yes, sir."

* * *

><p><strong>Delta Site,<strong> **15000 LY NNE from Earth, Norma Arm of the Milky Way Galaxy**

Delta Site, as its name indicated was the fourth offworld base that Earth had established. Its purpose was both as a place for highly dangerous scientific research that had the potential to create rather large craters should anything go wrong and as a secure bolthole for any Tok'ra that had to get scarce in a hurry.

Its security had been ensured by the fact that it was a Terra-class world discovered by the Asgard and consequently wasn't on any list of Stargate addresses that were out there accessible to the Goa'uld, not to mention the standard passage denial techniques of Iris and Shield.

This would be Harry's first visit to the site, and it also counted as only time he had ever fallen through an event horizon to rather painfully find himself kissing the dirty grey earth. He groaned and quickly rolled out of the way, and looked around in this very strange foxhole. As expected the MALP had been completed vaporized by their second dialing, and it was decidedly eerie having nothing but earth all around you whilst a frothing plasma event horizon created a ceiling above you.

The next thing to fall through was a folded expandable ladder. Harry quickly got that out of the way as well. Next to come through was Jack, who also did a nice impression of kissing the ground.

"Ouch."

Harry chuckled. "You better move Jack…"

Daniel fell through next and promptly landed on top of the still groaning Colonel.

"Ouuuch." Harry sighed and pulled the wincing archeologist off the Colonel, whilst Jack rolled to the other side of the foxhole with his face twisted and an arm rubbing his back. "I said give me a three count, Daniel."

"I did," he countered indignantly as Teal'C fell through event horizon, but he had clearly come through prepared in a way that had Harry kicking himself for its simplicity; the Jaffa had come through with his arms extended slightly forward, and his hands absorbed the relatively brief fall easily.

"SGC, we're through and safe," Harry spoke into his radio.

"_Roger that, cutting signal_."

The wormhole vanished and abruptly they were treated to the sight of pure blue sky and their noses picked up the smoke from various burn sources. Jack then proceeded used the age old method of mirror on a combat knife stuck together with chewed gum to scan the horizon above the Gate.

"Clear," he declared and Teal'C promptly unfolded and set up the ladder.

Harry took point, climbed up and vaulted the final rung to land in crouch and did a complete scan of the horizon first with his AW systems, his PR8 tracking right to left. There were no life signs evident in a three hundred meter radius, so pulled out his Hand Scanner.

The other three also climbed out and they surveyed the area with a grim air.

There wasn't a single building of Delta Site left standing; everything was devastated to the point that there was absolutely no trace left. SG1 was standing in the centre of a massive blast crater, with scorched earth in all directions. The nearest trees were absolutely flattened by explosive overpressure.

"Wow," was Daniel's rather awed response.

Harry could understand that awe, their self-destruct devices were meant to do exactly this.

"The self-destruct appears to be quite effective," Teal'C commented in a fashion that showed he was impressed while disquieted at the same time that there could come a time when he would find himself caught in such a blast if ever the SGC or any other Terran site was compromised while he was there.

"Single radius blast, weapons grade naquadah potassium explosion," Jack shook his head whilst putting on his sunglasses. "Commodore, if you wouldn't mind?" he gestured to the Gate.

Harry nodded and holstered his PR8, "Come Daniel, give me a hand."

"Ummm, okay…never moved anything this big before though."

"Don't make me quote Yoda to you, Daniel," Harry threatened. "Besides with two of us doing it we'll share the strain equally. Teal'C, get those Gate anchors ready."

The Jaffa nodded and pulled out two box like devices from his pack that he placed on the ground a few feet in front of the overturned Stargate. Harry and Daniel waited for him to finish before both of them took deep breaths as they reached out to all the ambient energy sources around – the most prevalent being the zero-point energy of the Universe, plus the ambient electro-magnetic field of the planet.

"Now," Harry said simply, whilst Daniel gave a lifting gesture with one hand to release his intention.

The Stargate silently lifted itself off the ground from one side, it tilted slowly upwards and by the time it reached a forty five degree angle relative to the ground, Daniel was already wincing with effort. Harry's eyes were narrowed in concentration but didn't give any outward sign that moving the twenty six ton mass of the Stargate affected him at all. Thankfully, they weren't picking up the thing, but merely tilting it.

Finally, the Gate was ninety degrees relative and Teal'C rushed forward, attached the Anchors to the arches closest to the ground and activating them.

The Stargate was back in business.

Harry took a deep breath and bled off the residual energy he had left in him back into Nature and looked to Daniel who was leaning on his knees and breathing like he had just run a brisk jog.

"Easy there," Harry said, walking over and patting the archeologist on the back, helping him to dissipate the energies.

"Nice going Space monkey."

"Th-thanks," nodded Daniel, "I don't think I've ever fully appreciated how much that thing weighs until now."

Fifteen minutes later after attaching a Naquadah Reactor to the Gate and manually dialing back to Earth, Colonel Reynold's SG3, SG11 and SG21 emerged. After everyone had withdrawn to a safe distance, the Darkstar drone blasted through with a roar and shot into the air, cloaking as it climbed into the sky.

"Split up according to teams, we've detected life signs scattered all about the place in a five mile radius," Jack ordered the team leaders. "Priority is to evacuate the wounded, mark the dead with signal tags and move on, at least until we're sure that there's no more of Anubis' goons on the planet. If you find one, radio into the Commodore for a Darkstar strike. SG21, Gate duty. SG1 is going after the Carters."

"Copy," nodded Reynolds and the teams fanned out.

8888888888

SG1 had barely gotten five hundred meters from the Stargate and was well into the forest when Teal'C called a halt and stared at the ground.

"What have you got?" Jack asked, joining him.

"This is a piece of armor from one of the Anubis drones." The piece in question was half buried and scorched.

"Commodore, what's the Dark Star picking up?"

Harry stared for a moment into the ergonomic Dark Star interface he was wearing. "I've got a weak trace of the energy used to animate a Kull; I'm tracking it to its source now. Luckily it seems we've only got one left active in the general area."

They continued on their search while the computer was following the energy trail, and they traced that route.

"_O'Neill,"_ Reynolds radioed.

"Go ahead."

"_We found twelve survivors but they're not in good shape_."

"How bad?" Jack asked flatly.

"_Some can walk, but most need immediate medical treatment_."

"Major Carter with them?"

"_I'm afraid not._"

Harry consulted SG3's position on his DarkStar Command screen. "Colonel Reynolds, Dark Star indicates your path to the Gate is clear, but be advised there is one Drone on the loose."

"_Understood, Commodore, we'll get these people home_."

88888888

The first welcome event for SG1 came half an hour later when they found Jacob Carter, trapped under a fallen tree trunk that had been flattened by the Delta Site self-destruct. Thankfully, it had only caught and broken his leg.

"Jacob!" Jack called as they rushed over to the fallen Tok'ra.

Between Harry and Teal'C they easily lifted the trunk off of him, while Daniel got out a Healing device and to at least seal up the bleeding from the wound.

"Anubis drones…" groaned Jacob.

"We know," Jack interrupted.

Then they hit the proverbial jackpot when Jacob handed them the very reason for this whole mess. The Kull Disruptor module for the PR8. "Take this. It's not a hundred percent, but it's all we've got that doesn't involve micro-nukes. It only has a few more shots. Sam has the properly calibrated power unit that's supposed to go into it."

Jack affixed the Disruptor to his weapon and asked intently, "Where is she?"

"I don't know," Jacob said, despair clouding his voice. "I don't know if she's even still alive."

"We can't take the time to get you back to the Gate, we're tracking the Drone's energy signature…" Harry began.

"I'll take him," Daniel volunteered.

"Yes, hurry, that drone was after us, if she's still alive it's hunting her."

"Let's go," Jack ordered stoically, immediately resuming their trail, with Harry and Teal'C close on his heels.

888888888

They set a blistering pace through the woods as they continued to hunt the Kull Warrior, who was apparently hunting Sam in turn. They crossed a path when they found the first physical signs of the pursuit.

"Footprints," Teal'C declared, kneeling close to inspect them.

"Standard SGC issue," Jack spared a brief glance, but kept his eyes peeled on the area around them.

"Indeed, the depth of the impression is consistent with someone of Major Carter's size."

"Another set here," Harry pointed out.

"They seem to be much larger, perhaps the drone," Teal'C glanced at his comrades, then at the Kull Disruptor on Jack's PR8. "Do you believe this prototype weapon will be effective against it?"

"We'll jump off that bridge when we come to it."

They burst back into a run.

8888888888

The energy trail and footprints were setting a clear direction now towards the east, in the hills overlooking the Delta Site. The higher ground would allow anyone being hunted to have a good overview of the area and aid in evading pursuit.

Harry's Darkstar interface bleeped at him and opening it he gave a triumphant exclamation. "I've found Sam, she just took a drink from a river, a kilometer ahead…Fuck!...the Kull is across it and firing…" he slammed the Interface shut before grabbing hold of both his comrades arms in iron hard grips and turning them all into a subspace leap…

…the iron tight bands of being squeezed through a thin tunnel of subspace…the world blacked out…

The three reappeared twenty meters away from the Kull Warrior firing across the shallow river at the desperately fleeing form of Sam.

Harry and Teal'C needed no further encouragement to unleash their PR8s to distract the Kull, whilst Jack took after Sam to get the power module.

The Kull turned and unleashed both its Plasma Gauntlets, forcing them to take cover behind trees, but they kept up their rate of fire.

Harry was forced to abandon his cover twice in less than a minute when the Kull blasts threatened to chew through his particular tree. When he ran out of charge and reloaded, Teal'C took up the slack, and kept pouring on the blue plasma fire into the Kull Warrior. They repeated the process, retreating in leaps, but keeping to the river.

Finally, after what seemed like an unbearable eternity, an oddly phased aquamarine bolt of energy shot from the other side of the river and slammed into the Kull Warrior. The bolt arced over the impact point on its armor oddly and the Kull staggered, but remained upright.

Another Disruptor bolt lanced in and impacted…and the seemingly invulnerable Kull simply crumpled to the ground like a puppet whose strings had been cut.

Harry took a deeply relieved breath and emerged from behind his tree that was groaning in protest and threatening to fall over from being shot with destructive plasma. He quickly walked towards the river and stood over the prone form of the lifeless Kull, kicking it slightly.

Teal'C joined him and they watched as Jack comforted an absolutely exhausted Sam who had nasty plasma wound in her leg. She was snuggled in his embrace and looked as if she just wanted to fall asleep right there.

"Let's get her out of here."

* * *

><p><strong>Conference Room 1, SGC, Earth<strong> – **A week later…**

"By all of Creation, you have to be joking!" Harry declared with astonishment, staring to a rather uncomfortable looking Jonas Quinn/Kanan of the Tok'ra.

"I wish I was," Kanan declared, his voice resonant. "Our spy in the System Lord Olokun's ranks was captured when Anubis attacked with his Kull Warriors. He initially thought he had escaped detection and was attempting to return to Delta Site when he was caught by surprise and captured halfway through the dialing sequence. He was consequently prevented from taking his own life by use of the Micro-explosive all Tok'ra field operatives have implanted in their skulls."

"Even so, a Tok'ra's natural resistance to torture should have allowed him to hold out for a while…enough time for his partner to enact the extraction plan…"

"…conventional thinking would suggest that, but our operative wasn't tortured at all," Kanan sighed and produced a small purple container that he opened and showed to everyone in the room. Inside was a small purple obsidian sphere about the size of a thumb, with nasty looking pins jutting out of it.

Harry squinted at the thing suspiciously.

"This is the foreign device we managed to extract from our operative," Kanan continued, "while he is still in recovery we managed to debrief him somewhat, combined with the our own analysis of it…to put it simply, his knowledge was interpreted and copied."

"Figures," Harry sneered as he stared at the device with revulsion. "Leave it to Anubis to pervert the intent and inventions of the Ancients."

"It is an Ancient device then?" Hammond queried worriedly, since this posed a massive new headache for operational security.

"Not as such, no," Harry shook his head, "the principle technology was the precursor to the Alteran Interface Chair in Antarctica. The Ancients at one time had a similar device implanted at the base of their brain stems, to directly interface mentally with their technology. Anubis has used that concept but turned it around, instead of the Interface implant being slaved to the brain, it's used to subvert and interpret your neurons into readable computer data."

"So _literally_ everything your operative knew was compromised, including Delta Site," Jack grumbled.

"Yes," Kanan's face turned somber, "all the Tok'ra bases he had knowledge of has already been moved. However unintentional it was, the attack on Delta Site to destroy the Kull Disruptor served to buy time for those bases and the Tok'ra within. The sacrifice of those Terrans who died will not be forgotten by the Tok'ra."

8888888888888888

_A/N: Hope you enjoyed it. It certainly felt nice to get back to this fic after my muse went in a hundred different directions. The closer relations between allies in this Universe and the sensibility of Earth in not throwing the Jaffa and Tok'ra into the same small base, means that they don't come to blows. It also helps that Earth has more offworld bases. The Tretonin Synthesizer helped with the Jaffa keeping in the Alliance. Not to mention the visible presence of the Asgard is a unifying element as well. In Stargate OTL, I felt like strangling that stupid ass Jaffa M'Zel for his reasons in abandoning the Alliance - oh yes, we're in a war for sheer survival, lets abandon our allies so we can screw-up even more on our own. There's a time to build communities and train leaders and it's NOT during a frakkin WAR._


	43. Chapter 43

_**Chapter 43 – Inauguration **_

**Auxiliary Control Room, SGC, Terra, Milky Way**

Harry sat patiently back and allowed the Airman who was seemingly responsible for sound to affix the lapel microphone to the collar of his BDUs. When said airman was finally done fiddling with it and retreated, Harry adopted a more normal posture and stared with a mild smile into the lens of the video camera not three meters away. His eyes tracked to the slim, jocularly smiling man dressed in a suit, sitting next to the camera who was quickly reviewing notes in a large leather folder. This was Emmett Bregman; a popular documentary maker and investigative journalist.

Harry had no doubt that Bregman was good at his job, but those qualities didn't exactly endear him to anyone within the environment of the SGC. He also had one of those indefinable faces that made you want to bash it in rather violently – a decidedly odd impulse that Harry easily mastered, but it was there nevertheless.

Bregman was here 'officially' to chronicle the one thousandth trip through the Stargate. The _real _reason was the fact that President Clinton was rapidly nearing the end of his term in office, and had in a masterful display of politics gotten the STO Council to sanction having a classified documentary made for posterity. The President had also reasoned that the Stargate Program really needed to be chronicled visually for historic purposes – after all, there had been cameras on the beaches on Normandy during World War 2, and more recently reporters had been embedded with military units operating in combat theatres on Earth.

From that point of view, Harry understood it, but it didn't mean he liked it. There was also the fact that it could be seen as face saving exercise on the part of the President – he didn't want his name to go down in history as having been part of a massive conspiracy to hide the truth from the world, even if that world hadn't been ready for it.

So Harry decided to bite the bullet and get it on with it, Bregman wouldn't rest until he had an interview from all the major figures in the SGC. Jack's attempts to avoid the journalist, while amusing were quite futile.

"Okay," Bregman grinned winningly. "Are we rolling?"

The airman behind the camera fiddled with it, the red light on the front came on. "We're rolling."

"Air Commodore Harry James Potter, Royal Air Force on secondment to the Stargate Treaty Organization, the foremost Meta-physicist in the SGC, scientist and inventor with quite a few patents under your belt, Earth's Ambassador at large to the Galaxy, uh, well I could go on for a while it seems and according to your birthdate, you're only twenty four?"

Harry nodded. "That's correct."

"I certainly don't recall many twenty-four year olds with such an impressive resume, Commodore."

"One thing you will learn about the Universe when you go beyond the Stargate, is that it doesn't care if you're old enough by Earth conventions for something…you either adapt or you die."

"It's a very Darwinian environment then?"

"Most certainly."

Bregman's voice turned incredulous. "I read here your first time offworld was actually involuntary, that you were…abducted by aliens?"

"Yes, that's how this all began, Mr Bregman. The Goa'uld abducted our ancestors and played Johnny Appleseed with them. Now, I wasn't abducted by them, but by another species."

Bregman nodded. "I see. You were then rescued by the Asgard. Stayed with them and 'fought for humanity' amongst the stars until Earth itself was threatened with annihilation, at which point you joined the SGC and continued to provide aid till this very day."

"Indeed."

"Why?"

Harry frowned in confusion. "Why what?"

"Why come back? Why fight? From my notes, the Asgard are an intergalactic civilization with millions of years of history and advancement behind them. In comparison, Earth is hardly worth mentioning."

Harry's reply was firm. "This is my homeworld, Mr Bregman. I grew up here for the first eleven years of my life. The Asgard may be advanced beyond anything you can imagine, yes, they are my friends and mentors, but they are neither _my_ people nor _my _culture. Nothing can replace that."

"That's very clear, no equivocation about that at all. Good. Now that that's out of the way, let's get begin talking about the Goa'uld and some others, get your perspective on the enemies that our world faces…"

* * *

><p><strong>P3X-666<strong>

SG-13 exited the threshold of the Stargate and surveyed the planet they had been assigned. Grass, hills and trees, blue cloudy sky with two moons overhead…standard Ancient terraformed fare.

Major Dixon, the leader of SG13 lowered his PR8 into a more comfortable position. "Okay, Balinsky, which way?"

The archaeologist of the team checked a hand-held scanner and pointed south-east. "That way."

Dixon pointed casually at the two remaining members of his team. "I'll take point. Wells, Bosworth, you're rear guard. Five-meter spread. Keep your eyes open."

Balinsky tucked his nav device into his combat harness. "The MALP showed no indication of any recent Goa'uld activity on this planet, sir."

"I don't see any indication of _anything_ here," the commander of SG13 retorted.

The red-headed archeologist smirked and held up the notebook that the team knew very well. "Take the usual bet on that, sir?"

"Sure. Wells?" he prompted.

"Abandoned naquadah mine."

Dixon snorted in derision as Balinsky eagerly made a note of it. "Boring. But good odds. Bosworth?"

The Lieutenant replied with mock seriousness. "I'm going to put my money on trees, sir."

"Bosworth's disqualified for being a smartass," the Major declared promptly, whilst Wells and Balinsky snickered in amusment, "I'll go with two-headed aliens."

"Hostile or friendly, sir?"

"One head good, one head bad. Balinsky?"

The archeologist shrugged "Oh, the ruins of an ancient city."

"Yeah, you wish."

With that done SG13 set out on their designated scouting route. Wells had only one thing on his brain recently, and it was justifiably freaking him out. Countless men before him had experienced this, and the other three members of SG13 were well used to this topic by now after Wells had received the news a few months ago. Major Dixon, as the only father in the team, was the only one who could meaningfully give sage wisdom on the subject.

"Yeah, all night screaming. Projectile vomiting. Nuclear diapers. You have no idea. The reason they make them so damn cute is so you don't suffocate them in their sleep."

"Sir, you have four kids." Wells pointed out.

"Yeah, why do you think I enjoy my job so much? Don't get me wrong. I love the little buggers to death, but, trust me, having four kids makes going through a Stargate and facing off against alien bad guys look like nothing." He spread his arms out wide, indicating the planet, and by extension the War against the Goa'uld. "_This_ is relaxing."

"Then why'd you have four?"

"Well, one's pretty bad, but you figure you gotta have two, so the little guy could have a brother or sister, right? Then you have two boys, and the wife says she wants a girl. So you figure, "Hell, three can't be much worse than two," right? What you don't realize is, your brain is fried because you haven't slept. After three, four is no big deal. You're so deep in it, nothing seems to matter anymore. It's chaos. You just try to make through each day alive. In the end, you spend all the energy you have left trying to get 'em into bed. Only to lie awake, praying they don't get hooked on drugs, hurt, or worse, wind up dead in an alley somewhere."

"Can't wait, sir." Wells remained stubbornly enthusiastic, even in the face of the negative answer.

"Yeah, miracle of birth my ass. I'll tell you what a miracle is." Dixon smirked knowingly. "Birth control that works."

They broke through a line of dense high trees and shrubbery; onto to stop in shock at the sight before them.

"Well, I'll be damned."

On a massive plateau stretching out before them were distinct plinths and worn down lines of former structures that clearly indicated only one thing…it was the remnants of an ancient city.

Balisnky was stupefied and he eventually recovered use of his jaw to mutter disbelievingly, "I win."

* * *

><p><strong>SGC Control Room, Earth, Milky Way<strong>

Harry listened with excitement and then concern as Major Dixon and Dr Balinksy reported the events on P3X666 via a MALP transmission. Finding an Alteran city in the Milky Way, be it ruined or otherwise was a big thing; the slightest and smallest artifact could be a potential key to another find on the level of Atlantis. Their subsequent encounter with what sounded to be a weaponized robot probe was the cause for alarm.

Jack stepped into the pickup range of the audio sensors embedded in the main control console. "Do you see anything else worth staying for, Dave?"

On the planet, Major Dixon scanned the surrounding area before looking back into the visual pickup of the MALP. "_Hard to say."_

Dr Balinsky leaned into the camera. _"We _need _to finish searching these ruins."_

Hammond considered this for a few moments. "How long?"

"_A day or two. Maybe more."_

"It would be nice to send an UAV. At least get an aerial overview," Daniel suggested.

"Permission to remain granted. I'll send SG-3 as back up. Any sign of further threat, you get out of there immediately, Colonel."

"_Understood, sir."_

"I really think Sam and I need to examine that probe, General. We need to know if it managed to get off a transmission before it was totaled," Harry suggested.

"Send the device back and report in on the hour," Hammond nodded to the visual sensor.

"_Yes, sir. SG-13 out."_

Dixon switched off the MALP feed and the wormhole promptly shut itself down. General Hammond moved to leave but Jack gently intercepted him. "Sir…um, it's not that I don't appreciate…"

"I knew Bregman was headed your way, and I thought you might be looking for an excuse to get away, Colonel."

"I thought as much, sir. And I just wanted to express my deep and unyielding…love for you, sir."

Harry snickered into his hand. "Jack, you're going to run out of ideas and good Samaritans eventually."

Jack was about to indignantly reply when Colonel Tom Rundell appeared in the control room, looking distinctly aggrieved. The tall mustachioed man had drawn the short straw in being assigned to be Bregman's babysitter and making sure the journalist didn't step into any area he had no business being.

"General, if you have a moment, Mr. Bregman would like a word."

Harry did not envy the General the coming conversation so hurried out the room with Sam and Teal'C in tow to receive the probe that SG13 had disabled. They carried it up to her lab to begin the analysis.

The device itself was made of a trinium-naquadah alloy, and had a vague insect-like design, a rounded body with a forward facing scanning strip, and tendrils hanging from the end. Currently it was in two scarred pieces and Sam carefully opened a torn section to reveal a bowl interior with various colors of crystal jutting out in perfectly spaced intervals. Harry began attaching interface leads to those crystals in the hope of reading the data stored on them.

Sam looked up and began typing extremely fast on her laptop. "You two ever seen anything like this?"

Teal'C scrutinized the device. "I have not."

"Nor have I, but this metallurgy is definitely Goa'uld," Harry waved his hand held Scanner over the remains.

"I've got an interface program established…downloading…huh, it's definitely a remote probe. The storage capacity of the memory crystals is immense, but so far, all I've found are detailed images of the ruins. You know, it makes sense. We use a MALP. Why wouldn't the Goa'uld?"

Teal'C nodded. "The Goa'uld are scavengers. It is quite possible they got the idea from us."

"So, you do your interview with the documentary crew yet?"

Harry quirked a grin at her. "Yes, I treated it like when you have to pull off a plaster, better do it quickly…you'll feel less pain."

"Oh…and you Teal'C?"

The big guy grimaced. "Indeed."

"You know, I have to admit, I can't wait to hear what everyone else said."

"Well, then I hope you enjoy listening to an hour of me explaining why our enemies are our enemies," Harry exhaled explosively. "Honestly, what is so hard to understand about the fact that we can't afford to have any Goa'uld survive – they're all genetically power-hungry megalomaniacs who wont rest until we're all either dead or enslaved under lash of whip, and don't even get me started on the Wraith. I had to show Bregman the pictures from my time in Pegasus before he would admit that we would have no choice but to genocide both as a matter of sheer survival. So what do you say, Teal'C?"

"I did not say much."

Sam's lips quirked in amusement. "Really? That is surprising. It's usually so hard to shut you up."

Teal'C raised both his eyebrows at her sarcasm. "I found the entire experience unpleasant."

"They want to talk to me again."

"Did your interview not go well, either?"

"Well, I thought it was fine. But apparently, I looked…nervous."

Harry and Teal'C shared knowing looks. "Hmmmm."

They continued with the work for a few frustrating hours, trying to coax more relevant data from the probe.

Harry moved the interface leads to various other crystals in sequence, trying to get better data. It wasn't easy as quite few were rather damaged by the damage SG13 had inflicted on it, finally…"Bloody hell, its system log seems to be isolated on a separate crystal from memory control."

"Odd design," Sam mused as the data in question started to pour down the screen of her laptop. Harry leaned over to read it.

"Its technical readouts mostly, power levels, navigation…_shit_."

"What?"

"See here," he pointed to the relevant line of Goa'uld text, "that's where it encountered SG13. It activated shields and weapons, in addition to a long range communicator."

888888888

**SGC Control Room**

The Stargate was dialed as fast as was possible and a wormhole established back to P3X666.

"Colonel Dixon, this is General Hammond, we have reason to believe the Goa'uld probe sent out a subspace transmission prior to your disabling of it. I'm ordering you to return to Stargate Command immediately."

"_Roger that, sir. Estimate arrival time fifteen minutes. Dixon out_."

"Shut it down."

Sergeant Walter Harriman nodded and keyed in the sequence, cutting power to the Gate. Harry stood anxiously next to the General as they both watched the official time clock mounted above the observation windows.

"Sir, even if SG13 bugs out in time, I don't think we should abandon this site to the Goa'uld. This is an Alteran ruin, General, it may contain clues to other hidden sites in the Milky Way, and especially if this is Anubis' forces; we can't let it fall into his hands."

"That would require us possibly taking on Anubis' fleet and ground forces simultaneously."

"I doubt he'd dispatch a fleet just to investigate and secure a ruin that might prove to be useless. Anubis is still in a major offensive against the System Lords. At most we'll face a single Ha'tak or a group of Al'kesh, which a Destroyer can easily take on."

"We also face that same dilemma Commodore. Is this ruin worth fighting for?"

"Perhaps it is, but on the chance that it's nothing, perhaps this is an opportunity to test and utilize the SWORDS. That will mean no loss of life, at least on our part."

Hammond nodded thoughtfully. "All four Destroyers are in Sol, how long to P3X-666?"

Harry did the mental math quickly. "It's twenty three thousand light years, about seventy six odd hours."

The Stargate abruptly sprang to life and after barely twenty seconds a wormhole formed.

"Receiving SG13 GDO, Code Red, Sir."

SFs poured into the Gate room and knelt aiming for the event horizon as the Stargate defenses were shut down. Dr Balinsky appeared, his back turned to them as and PR8 aimed at the wormhole. "We've got Jaffa on our ass!" He hurriedly vaulted over the railing of the ramp to get out of the line of fire.

Wells and Bosworth was through next, the former being held up by the latter. The instant they had their wits about them after the ride through, they dropped to the ground.

Two Jaffa appeared next and before they could even let loose a single blast from their staff weapons, they were dead with multiple plasma and bullet holes.

Colonel Dixon finally ran through backwards, keeping up his fire into the wormhole until the Shield snapped on.

"We need a medic!"

The on-call med team rushed into the Gate room once all weapons were lowered, and attended to Wells, who had apparently taken a staff blast in his lower back. His AW armor had kept it out, but it had given him a bad blow to his spine.

Hammond and Harry rushed into the Gate room. "Colonel Dixon, report!"

Dixon took a few seconds to get his breath back. "A company strength of Anubis Jaffa, General. Dropped into the theatre by about eight Al'kesh. No Kull."

"Dr Balinsky!" The archeologist hurried over at the summons. "You've examined those ruins the most. I want a bottom line assessment. Is it worth securing?"

"Definitely," the lanky red head answered without hesitation. "I barely scratched the surface with my translations of the inscriptions on those ruins, and I can already tell you it mentions another location of importance to the Ancients within the Milky Way."

Hammond turned to Harry. "Secure us a beachhead, Commodore. I'll have _Odyssey_ ordered there immediately."

* * *

><p><strong>Orbit of P3X-666, 4 days later…<strong>

_Odyssey_ burst out of a hyperspace window. Her sensors immediately detected eight Al'kesh, two landed on the planet below, whilst six remained in orbit providing space superiority. The Al'kesh lacking the powerful sensor arrays of a Ha'tak had not had advanced warning of _Odyssey_'s approach, and as such were woefully out of position and spaced all around the planet in random patrol orbits.

The closest Al'kesh to _Odyssey_' emergence from Hyperspace had just enough time to register the threat before two neutron beams slammed into it, destroying its shields before a third beam speared the ship right through its own power core, causing it to explode in flash of liberated energy and a brief fireball that was snuffed out both by the vacuum of space and the flame using up all the oxygen in the Al'kesh itself.

"That's our free lunch done, now for the hard work ladies and gentlemen," Colonel Emerson, the 'Captain' of _Odyssey_ told his Bridge crew. "I want intercept courses for the remaining Al'kesh, fire up the Phalanx Interceptors."

The five Al'kesh rapidly moved on their own intercept vectors to attack _Odyssey_. They had their powerful plasma bombs, but their range was limited, as they used momentum from the bombers and the launcher itself to direct the course of those bombs. Meaning that the Al'kesh; a scout vessel designed primarily to attack other Ha'tak and ground support, found themselves unable to get within range to deliver those powerful bombs.

Multiple neutron beams tore through them before they could even orient their bow mounted cannons onto _Odyssey_. The Phalanx Interceptor found itself with nothing to do. The two Al'kesh that had been on the ground, now desperately trying to escape barely made it past the planet's thermosphere line when seven neutron beams from _Odyssey _gunned them down with extreme prejudice.

The company of Anubis Jaffa; now alerted as well to what was happening formed up in the Alteran ruins, to fight to the last man if need be, and make the Tau'ri pay in blood for possession of it. Unfortunately, the Tau'ri had no intention of playing fair.

"Alright we have space superiority." Emerson turned to his Weapons officer. "Signal Earth and begin SWORD deployment."

The Stargate exploded into life with its usual flare of exotic plasma. The wormhole first carried the discus shaped grenades that detonated and killed the six man Jaffa team that had been guarding it. Next through the wormhole came a continuous encrypted subspace radio signal that controlled the devices which were right now being beamed onto the battlefield by _Odyssey_.

They stood barely eighty centimeters high, a meter long, and trundled along on all terrain tracks. They had a sharp, sloping appearance, armored with enhanced Chobham that now included trinium in the design and yet further protection was provided by the Firestorm shield system. In a small dome on top was an omni-directional multi-spectral visual sensor to allow its operator full visibility on the battlefield, no matter what conditions. It was armed with an integrated PR8 on a 360 degree turret and was directly powered via the man portable Naquadah Reactors housed inside each Sword.

Their official designation was Unmanned Ground Combat Vehicles or UGCVs. Seeing as that was rather a mouthful to pronounce, the codename 'Sword' was given after a vote was held between the STO engineers who had designed the thing.

Twenty five Swords appeared in the first wave, and they instantly started to receive input from their designated operator via the signal coming in from the wormhole.

They advanced forward with the speed of a running man, their turrets tracking and scanning for targets.

The first Jaffa who spotted a Sword didn't know what to make of the small machine at first; was it a smaller version of the unarmed Tau'ri probe devices? Then he saw the turret that rotated unerringly to point directly at him. A three shot burst of blue plasma announced a near revolution in the way war would be fought in the future. Men and women would still go through the Stargate to explore, trade, engage in diplomacy and fight the enemy in surprise encounters…but in planned ground operations, casualties were a thing of the past.

Only six Swords were disabled in the Battle for P3X666, when the Jaffa concentrated their staff fire to overpower the shields and managed to do enough damage to render the UGCV inoperable.

Back on Earth, the men and women from SG1, 2, 5, 13, 14 and 15; sat back from the operator consoles in the SWORD Control room on the twentieth sublevel of the SGC and struggled to come to grips with this new reality of warfare. They felt both relief – that the chances of never coming back home to their families was reduced considerably, and somewhat cheated, there had been no excitement and no adrenaline rush from engaging in this form of remote combat.

Colonel Dixon shook his head in disbelief, stretching his fingers and sitting back from the keyboard and mouse controls integrated into the Sword control station. "Hmmph, next thing you know they'll have my son down here playing 'Shoot the Jaffa.' This felt like one of his FPS games."

Wells winced as his back twitched. "I'm just happy that I'll get to go home to my wife."

Harry got up from his own station and walked over to Teal'C. The big guy looked to be in one of his very pensive moods.

"It doesn't feel very honorable, does it?"

"Indeed, Commodore Potter."

"When you get down to it, there is nothing _honorable_ about war. That mystique about what is essentially a very dirty business only encourages yet more death and misery. The Jaffa you killed with the Sword device could have surrendered to live another day, but their fanaticism made that impossible. So we must do what is unfortunately necessary."

Harry nodded to the rest of SG1 and walked out of the Sword Control room, only to run into Mr Bregman.

"Com…Commodore!"

Harry sighed wearily. "Yes, Mr Bregman."

"I just wanted to thank you…th-the footage you gave me was…well, it will help me tell the story."

Harry nodded. He had come to conclusion that the only way to get Bregman out of everyone's way quicker and to make the President happy was to just bite the bullet and give the man access to the visual data of all the events and battles he had participated in whilst wearing the chromesuit. "Just make sure you portray the unvarnished truth and I can see you perhaps being invited back in the future. The schedule for going public with the STO is well within your lifetime."

As expected the man looked like he was going to wet himself with excitement. Harry chuckled as he left the journalist who was lost in his own world and kept muttering, "Stargate updates on the nightly news."

* * *

><p><strong>Alteran Dreadnought<strong> _**Briseus**_**, L3 Lagrange Point, Lantean System, Pegasus Galaxy **

"Now that is impressive." John Sheppard stood on the Bridge and took in the sight before the _Briseus _with an appreciative grin.

"You are looking at the pinnacle of Lantean stationary weapon platforms," Captain Herodotus opened his eyes, emerging from the Cyberspace of the _Briseus_. He considered himself a ship captain first and foremost. The second in command position of Atlantis was an honor, but it wasn't the call of his heart. As such he had jumped at the chance of captaining a fine ship such as the _Briseus_ for a time.

Their current mission was a result of a detailed survey done of the Lantean System using Altantis' recently restored Long Range sensors. It had discovered that amazingly one of the System Defense Satellites was still intact. Herodotus wondered what would give the Wraith cause to leave it alone.

Rodney was at one of the holographic sensor interface stations, eagerly looking at its readings. "This thing is enormous. It's slightly bigger than a Goa'uld mothership." John nodded in appreciation. The satellite had a very ornate, geometric design, with multiple decahedral spines bristling in every direction, radiating outward from a central core.

"This was one of ninety such satellites that picketed this orbital line. It was the last potent defense that stood any hope of beating back the Wraith." Herodotus shook his head gravely in memory.

"What are they armed with?"

"Each spine is armed with a projector weapon that fires a gluon particle beam that also produces a limited warping in space-time along the length of the beam. A Wraith Hive ship can be sliced in two with a single shot."

Rodney was goggling alternately both at Herodotus and at his sensor station after hearing that. "How the heck could the Wraith beat you if that was the kind of firepower you were throwing against them?"

"The weapon has a number of problems that prevented it from wide scale implementation on our warships. When fired, the gluons produced had a tendency to accumulate in the power conduits connected to the projector if it was fired numerous times. If it wasn't purged immediately they would damage the power systems. The weapon itself is also quite large and resource intensive to produce, we would've had to build a ship around the Gluon Projector to bring them to bear against the Wraith fleet. Therefore it was decided to mount them on defense platforms instead."

John nodded remembering the masses of anti-baryon bolts that a Hive ship could produce. "Ah, so rate of fire was its downfall. Are there any energy readings from the satellite?"

Rodney checked his console. "Uh, nope."

"So it could be just out of power?"

"Yes, and it has some damage," Herodotus brought up an enhanced visual of a central section of the satellite, overlaid with a structural scan. "A number of central power conduits are damaged if not destroyed; probably by gluon accumulation, only a single secondary conduit remains, it's definitely repairable. We could then use Briseus to accelerate it through controlled Hyperspace bursts into Lantea orbit."

Rodney frowned at his station suddenly. "Huh, that's odd, I'm detecting very weak subspace radio signal, something in the ultra-low frequency range."

"Where's it coming from?"

"The third terrestrial planet in the Lantean system, its orbit places it within a few hundred million kilometers of our current position. Oh boy, it's a distress call…" Rodney turned to them, his face pale. "A _Wraith _distress call."

8888888888888888888

**Briseus**

General Theron absorbed the news stoically; her image on one side of the omniview Bridge merely folded its arms.

"_Wraith? In this Solar system?"_

Rodney nodded. "I know. Celestially speaking its right in our back yard."

"We figure the Lantian satellite shot the Wraith ship down in the final battle for Atlantis."

"_And it's still putting out a signal after thousands of years?"_

"It's a very weak signal. If any part of that ship is intact, the wealth of scientific and military knowledge we could acquire is invaluable."

"_Captain Herodotus?"_

"I agree," nodded the Alteran. "However, we must be extremely cautious in exploring the wreck and very well armed. My scan of the vessel indicates it's a supply variant of the Wraith Cruiser. It's entirely possible there are still Wraith alive in that ship."

"After ten thousand years?" Rodney exclaimed incredulously.

Herodotus was unfazed by the skepticism. "Wraith hibernation combined with periodic feeding on any humans that the ship has stored in its numerous preservation pods would allow them to while away many millennia at a time."

"So we go down there with a team of Marines loaded for bear," John nodded at the Captain's point.

"_Alright. Proceed with extreme caution, and check in with me in two hours."_

888888888888

**Lantea III**

John and a team of five Marines appeared with a flash on the semi-arid surface. The Lantean sun beat down hard through the atmosphere, and he was rather glad he was in a full chromesuit at the moment. Any length of time under that and he was sure to be peeling skin after a few hours.

"Alright Sergeant, take point, our target is a kilometer away to the south, there might be powered down automated defenses we can't detect."

"Understood, sir."

John took his place on the flank of the unit formation and they began a light jog towards their target, keeping their eyes peeled and PR8s tucked into their shoulders in ready to fire posture. The run was uneventful and the occasional dune and soft sand made it slower going than normal. Finally, they went prone just before the lip of a hill and crawled carefully forward to observe the Wraith ship that had clearly crashed into the depression below. The thing had taken one hell of a hit from that Gluon weapon.

"I'm seeing skeletons near an egress hatch in the ship, sir," reported one of the Marines.

John focused his eyes and spotted what the Marine was pointing out. "I guess everyone didn't die in the crash. Anyone getting any lifesigns?"

"Negative, sir."

"That might not mean anything; in hibernation they don't register on lifesign scans, so keep frosty."

They paused at the egress hatch and his AI helpfully informed him that it detected faint power readings now, probably what was powering that weak distress signal. John raised his PR8 and led the way into the typically blue ghoulish interior of the Wraith vessel. With its life support systems down, there was none of that ever present mist at ground level, not to mention a lot of sand had found its way inside. Shortly afterwards, they came across the mummified corpse of a Wraith sitting up against a wall, covered in cobwebs.

"This guy looks like he just lay there and died."

"It seems rather fresh, Major Sheppard," the Sergeant pointed out.

"Yeah, we've definitely got a vamp on the loose here, Beckett will want samples, watch my back." He knelt down and brushed away some of the cobwebs over the corpse's face, it became clear that the Wraith didn't die naturally – it had the appearance of something which had been drained of its life energy.

"Okay this is different," the Sergeant commented. "Wraith cannibalism."

John had materialized the sample kit they all had been forced to carry by Dr Beckett exactly for such occasions. "Probably as a last resort. I guess some of them tried to survive as long as possible."

When he was done they headed deeper into the core of the ship. That was when they found a very large domed chamber, with organic stasis pods squeezed into every nook and cranny, each one filled with a human body.

"Well, it is a supply ship."

John had to force himself not to act when his AI bleeped a warning and projected a lifesign scan on his HUD.

'_Alright folks, scatter and blast it…now!_'

John whirled around with all the speed he could muster and triggered a three shot plasma burst towards the ceiling where the rather ragged looking Wraith had been hanging to ambush them from behind. The Marines joined in a moment later.

"ARRGGHGH!"

The Wraith fell to the ground as the destructive plasma exploded around his position. It launched itself forward, hoping to bowl over one of the Marines, but it was met with five blue plasma bolts which flung it backwards against the opposing corridor's wall.

They carefully advanced closer to the 'dead' Wraith.

"Why are we still getting a lifesign signal?"

The answer came as before their eyes the plasma burns on the Wraith healed. It abruptly sat up and screamed. It was the cue for the Marines and John to unleash their weapons on full auto into the thing. John kept his aim for the head, and eventually there was nothing more left of the Wraith than a few scorched meaty fragments.

John was rather thankful he didn't have to smell that. "Is it dead now?"

The Sergeant toed one piece of the Wraith's head gingerly. "I think so, Major. How on earth did the thing do that? The Wraith normally go down with a single kill shot from a PR8."

"Maybe the cannibalism thing gave it a stronger healing ability," John theorized, then grimaced. "I'm going to have to take more samples. We finish a sweep, and then McKay can come down here and do his thing with the computers."

888888888888888888

**Orbit of Proculus, Pegasus Galaxy**

Puddle Jumper One raced as fast as its engines could propel the small craft, the reason being the two Wraith Darts on their tails and firing their weaponry in bursts towards the disguised Alteran spacecraft.

At the controls, John's mind was fully immersed in the cyberspace of the craft, guiding it through evasive maneuvers with his focused thoughts and will, only using the manual controls for personal preference.

Lt Ford, seated behind him winced at the deadly blue energy missing them by mere meters. "I recommend shooting back any time now, sir."

"The first hit has caused some damage. McKay."

Rodney vaulted out of the co-pilot seat and into the back of the craft to access the maintenance panels. "I'm on it."

Teyla was clutching at her own chair in frustrated fear that she could not affect the outcome of whether they lived of died. "Where did they come from?"

"She's right. The Darts are short range fighters. There's probably a hive ship around here somewhere."

The Athosian's voice was insistent. "Then we need to get out of here."

"Yes we do," agreed John, turning the Jumper on a heading towards the other side of the planet, where the Stargate was currently orbiting. He rotated the Jumper's attitude so the 'ceiling' was facing the planet, and pulled 'up' lowering the altitude enough to try and go for a gravitational slingshot manoeuvre to aid their speed.

"Now we're taking the scenic route. McKay?"

Rodney was frantically fiddling with the crystals and tapping on his TabletPC. "I'm almost there." The Jumper shook as a baryon blast tagged the hull, thankfully, the Alterrans had long since modified the hull composition of a Jumper against such weaponry in their long war with the Wraith, but it wouldn't last forever.

"There's one on our tail!"

"Thank you. I know all about that one. Keep your eye on the other one."

McKay finished his frantic work with relief. "Okay. You should have weapons now."

John concentrated on the weapons systems and still got back an error message blurted back in the Ancient language that he didn't understand. He was _so_ going to pay more attention in Language Class in the Atlantis Academy. But he understood the gist of it.

"Nope, still not working."

"You sure?"

"Positive."

Rodney's voice took on an almost childish tone of annoyance. "I'm pretty sure I fixed it."

John winced as another shot clipped them. "Well obviously you didn't!"

"Perhaps we could lose them in the atmosphere of the planet." Teyla suggested hopefully.

"No, there's two more coming in at two 'o clock, they're going to try and cut us off. McKay!"

Rodney was now even more frantic in his repair efforts, if such a thing was possible. "It's not like I'm holding back on you!"

That was when John detected a sheer astronomical amount of energy suddenly appearing out of nowhere. The Jumper's sensors did the computer equivalent of saying 'Not a clue' as to the nature of the energy, although visually it looked like someone had taken a lightning storm, concentrated it into a massive arcing ball of destruction that bore down with frightening speed upon the duelling spacecraft.

"Hang on!" It was all warning he could give before the lightning ball enveloped the area…destroying all the Darts in a second, it passed over the Jumper…

…nothing. It just made it slightly brighter in the cabin, before the electricity ball or whatever it was just sped off into the distance and vanished.

He turned with a perplexed look on his face. "The Wraith darts have all been destroyed."

Ford let out a sigh of relief. "Oh that's a good thing."

Rodney walked back into the fore compartment, his face ashen. "I thought for sure we were dead. Anyone think we were dead?"

Ford asked, more to the point. "What the hell was that?"

Rodney shrugged his shoulders as he sat down. "Some sort of energy weapon."

"Well what do you say you run a scan of the planet, and find out?" John instructed pointedly.

Ten minutes of scanning later whilst they had come within spitting distance of the orbital Stargate, Rodney could only say. "So just to confirm we're all still definitely not dead."

John shook his head. "I knew that McKay, I would rather like to know about the Space lightning that just saved our collective asses."

Ford frowned at that. "Lightning in space, sir?"

"That's what the Jumper's visual sensors recorded."

"I already said it's some sort of energy weapon. One that apparently destroys Wraith darts. Well assuming that we're still alive...and there doesn't seem to be any damage as a result of the pulse, I think we can safely conclude that ah...um...um...I got nothing."

"Could something like that be...naturally occurring?" Teyla ventured curiously.

John stared thoughtfully at the planet below. "My money's on not naturally occurring."

"Like a weapon the Lanteans left behind? I think Captain Herodotus would've mentioned that in the Briefing, sir."

"He doesn't know _everything_ that happened or was done back then, Lieutenant. But the more important point is a weapon that powerful has to be powered by…"

Rodney's face lit up like a Christmas tree. "A Zero Point Module. Right well we need to get down there."

"I got to put down, check for damage anyway...before we head back to Atlantis."

88888888888

Jumper One landed cloaked a kilometre away from the largest grouping of lifesigns on the planet. And it was one that looked distinctly like a paradise from what the sensors and his own eyes told him. Lush forests, mountains, grass lands surrounding massive lakes. There didn't even seem to be a single desert on the planet either, with the only uninhabitable parts being the frigid polar regions.

They were crouched in a copse of trees on top of a hill overlooking a large picturesque village where people dressed very liberally in brightly coloured leathers and robes went about their daily lives; washing clothes by hand, doing trade with a variety of handmade goods, children were playing gaily. Using both his eyes and chromesuit's HUD, he zoomed in and noticed that many of the adults were adorned with tattoos in an almost traditional Northern American fashion.

Ford turned to his commander. "If there's a weapon down here sir, these folks didn't build it."

"Yeah, I figured that, let's introduce ourselves. Weapons out of sight." With their PR8 stored in the chromesuit matter storage, they headed for the village.

The first to see them was a man wearing a red robe, he gasped for a moment, but then hurried off. The people nearest to them all stopped what they were doing and looked with confusion at the strange beings that had approached their village.

John tried to look as unthreatening as possible. "Hi. It's ok...we're friendly. Hi."

"It is likely they have never seen anyone from outside their village, let alone beings from another world."

Another man, this one older with slightly receding hair, blue eyes and very healthy skin was also dressed in a red robe and with more detailed tattoos. He approached wearily but nevertheless had a smile on his face. "Welcome. I am Zarah. One of the abbots of Proculus."

"John Sheppard. This is Teyla, Aiden Ford and Rodney McKay. We are beings known as Terrans."

"Please come," Zarah's weariness faded as he led them to the largest hut and bid them to sit at a low table. The various villagers all crowded around the hut in ardent curiosity, especially the children, it was almost cute to see. "This is the first time - at least in my own lifetime - that people such as you have come to us."

"I would imagine so," John nodded. "We do not come from this world."

Zarah's eyebrows arose in amazement. "Another world?"

Teyla explained kindly. "From among the stars you see in the night sky. We are peaceful explorers."

"Well then glory to Othara for bringing you here safely."

"Othara?" Ford asked curiously.

Zarah frowned. "The provider and protector of all. Surely you know."

"Othara is known by many names among the stars, Zarah."

"Our purpose here is that we wish to offer our thanks," John really didn't want to get into a debate on comparative religions. "We were attacked by the Wraith and would have been killed had it not been for the intervention of…something or someone on this planet."

"Wraith?"

John raised his eyebrows at Zarah's incomprehension. "Pale skin, sunken eyes, suck the life out of you with their hands."

"We have never encountered such beings."

"And there is no mention of them in your history?" Teyla asked incredulously.

"None. I can assure you that for many thousands of years we have lived here in peace."

John exchanged pointed looks with his team. "Could you excuse us for a moment?"

"Of course please…" Zarah motioned for them to remain seated. "I must tell the other abbots of your arrival before we go to meet with Chaya."

"Chaya is?"

"The high priestess of Othara." Zarah made some sort of ritual sign at the mention of the name. "This is a great day for our people." He left and promptly shooed away the crowd for the team's privacy.

John shook his head in wonder. "This is big."

Teyla nodded fervently. "I agree Major. Every inhabited world I have encountered in this galaxy has been ravaged by the Wraith."

"Well this planet is protected by a Lantean weapon. This confirms it."

Ford was sceptical of McKay's claim. "Does it?"

"Well there's no other explanation. I mean the power requirements of something like that must be...astronomical. Only a ZPM could generate that."

Teyla stared thoughtfully at the people. "And yet they do not appear to be technologically advanced..."

"Unless that guy was lying. But he doesn't seem like the lying type."

"He wasn't lying, I would know," Rodney pointed out.

"Yeah so...automated defenses?" John theorized.

"Imagine a world where displaced refugees from dozens of planets could come and live in peace without fear of being culled by the Wraith."

Ford nodded at Teyla's reasoning. "Maybe we could negotiate some kind of treaty..."

"We just get access to that weapon. Studying it has to be a priority."

"Let's just try and stay on our best behaviour," John glared at Rodney.

"I'm always on my best behaviour."

888888888

With the abbots gathered they escorted John and his team away from the village for quite a few kilometres, through open fields, woods, until they approached a mountainous area, and started to climb a very long winding set of steps that led up to a beautifully built monastery built halfway up the mountain.

"Chaya sure does live pretty far from your people." John commented to Zarah.

"The solitude is to assist Chaya in communing with Othara."

He nodded in understanding that was pretty common practice among religious clerics on Earth as well.

When they entered the monastery proper, there in a truly beautiful garden was a woman wearing form hugging white robes that contrasted sharply with her sun drenched near-flawless skin. Brown hair tumbled to her shoulders that glistened in the afternoon sun and wise hazel eyes was currently focused on the plants that surrounded her as she carefully tended to them.

John could only stare in awe.

"Glory to Othara," Zarah bowed to Chaya.

"Welcome. You may rest." Chaya nodded with a pleasant smile on her lips that seemed to be glistening of their own accord.

"Thank you sister."

The abbots moved off and entered the monastery itself through a set of ornate wooden doors. That was when Chaya turned her attention to John and his team.

"You're new to Proculus."

John shook himself out of his stupor. "Yes. We're...uh...we're brand new in fact." He held out his hand. "Major John Sheppard."

Chaya demurely took his silver covered hand and he inwardly cursed the chromesuit for a moment. "I am called Chaya Sar." She glanced at his hand curiously before relinquishing it and looking at the others, "and you are...Teyla…" Ford and Rodney stiffened as they felt the mental brushing of another mind against their own. Chaya looked away and held up her hands. "I apologize for that. I was not aware you possessed the Gifts."

"Do you always intrude on the thoughts of your visitors?" Rodney asked unpleasantly. "I'm Doctor Rodney McKay, by the way."

"Lieutenant Aiden Ford."

"Pleasure to meet you, again I apologize, it's a habit and I only tried to get a sense of your identities, nothing invasive."

"Anyway, It's a pleasure to meet you too, Chaya" John nodded.

"You must be tired after your long journey. Shall I prepare some tea for us?"

"I was hoping you were gonna say just that."

88888888888

John had spoken at length about the Wraith at Chaya's request and that they were working on various fronts to stop them, whilst they drank the tea through the straw that chromesuit helpfully provided them.

"And where do they come from these...Wraith?"

"They seem to be everywhere in this galaxy. And they appear to have been on top of the food chain for a very long time." He dipped the straw to take another drink.

"It's terrifying. Truly terrifying."

"The Wraith have awakened from a long sleep...and this entire world is safe from the mass culling that has already begun. It is our hope...that you could grant sanctuary here on Proculus." Teyla asked hopefully.

John explained. "Our base in this Galaxy is secure and hidden, but it is not large enough to act as a safe haven."

Chaya raised her eyebrows in astonishment. "Sanctuary...for so many?"

"Well...we're not talking about everybody in the galaxy showing up at your doorstep. The planet is very big and largely uninhabited."

"More importantly it's protected by that weapon of yours." Rodney looked at her knowingly.

"Weapon? I'm aware of no such thing on Proculus."

John eyed Chaya uncertainly. "You sure about that?"

"Yes."

"Oh please..."

John whispered snappishly. "Rodney. Best behavior."

"This is as good as it gets, Major. Chaya, the only reason we are alive is because of a powerful energy weapon that emanated somewhere on the surface of this planet, it destroyed the ships that were shooting at us. That weapon is what's keeping the Wraith away."

"No Doctor McKay. It was Othara who protected you."

"Othara."

"Yes Othara saw you were in need."

"Chaya..." John began uncertainly, "there are a lot of people who are in need because of the Wraith...What you have here-what Othara has provided you with here is a very rare thing. But we have a lot to offer too...That's what friends do they share. I think we could help each other."

"I understand. I shall consult with her now." Chaya stood but waved them down when they stood as well. "Please stay here, I don't know how long this will take."

John nodded. "Thank you."

When she had left and entered the monastery. Rodney sighed incredulously. "You aren't seriously entertaining the notion that God blew those Wraith out of the sky to save us?"

"Not directly," John temporized. "But the Jumper's sensors couldn't make heads or tails of what it was. That should tell you something."

"Huh, those sensors should detect anything of Lantean origin…I mean why would they build a weapon system that their own sensors couldn't detect. Something as sophisticated as a weapon that selectively destroys Wraith ships but leaves ours without a scratch…"

"My point exactly, keep thinking about it," John sat down on the grass and leaned back using his hands as pillow and staring up into the perfect blue sky.

88888888888

When Chaya and a few of the monks returned her face of regret told the story. John stood quickly with others. "Major. We have relayed your request to our divine mother and though she does not doubt the righteousness of your mission...I am afraid she cannot countenance any other people but hers settling here."

Rodney scoffed. "And you really had to chant all that time to come up with that."

"Mckay." John glared.

Teyla hung her head in sadness. "Is there any way we can ask Othara to reconsider?"

"Othara understands and sympathizes. These Wraith are a scourge among our stars but she has to place the lives of her people first."

"Well I think we both knew what you were going to say long before you even went in there," Rodney shook his head.

Chaya looked to the ground, but John could see she was clearly unhappy with the situation as well. "We prayed for Othara's guidance."

"And what did Othara say? You're hiding behind your _religion_ to justify your complete and utter selfishness. There is no way that _your_ Othara and the Supreme Creator is the same."

"Rodney..."

Zarah glared at the scientist. "We ask only to be left alone. And in peace."

"So... untold thousands possibly...millions of people will die out there when they could have been saved. How very very peaceful of you." Butter wouldn't have melted in Rodney's mouth.

"You should be grateful to Othara," Chaya was very angry now, but still wouldn't raise her head.

"This is a waste of time, Major." Rodney shook his head.

"Othara regrets that she cannot help you."

"And I'm sure those were her exact words."

"That's enough! Head back to the jumper. I'll be there in a minute." John had lost his patience completely at this point.

"Why?"

"Because you're not helping."

"Yes, sir." Ford gave a quick salute, giving Rodney a threatening look. The three headed off out of the garden, whilst the abbots left as well back into the monastery.

John leaned on the stone balcony at the edge of the garden, looking out at the beautiful view. "I apologize."

Chaya moved closer. "He acts only in accordance to his beliefs as do we."

"I have only one question," John sighed and looked pointedly at Chaya. "Why would an Ascended Alteran interfere in the corporeal realm and be allowed to protect this one planet and its population from the Wraith? Why is Othara allowed to do that?"

Chaya's eyes widened in surprise. "I – I don't know what you m-mean."

"Please don't lie, Chaya. Our ship couldn't understand the energy used to destroy those Wraith ships…and an Ascended Being intervening explains that quite nicely."

Chaya sighed and her shoulders drooped. She looked so…sad and lonely.

"I so wish I could've seen Atlantis filled with life again, doing her purpose, but the Lanteans amongst you would recognize me."

John nearly fell to the floor from astonishment. He had thought that Chaya was an evolved human who represented Othara…and he had not once mentioned Atlantis at all. This could only mean…

"You are…you are Ascended?"

Chaya nodded. "When I was a mortal, I lived here. This was my home. When we ascended, we were supposed to leave behind us all human ties. Some of us found that difficult."

"So you couldn't stand by and watch your people getting wiped out by the Wraith."

"When their terrible fleet approached, I lashed out with my mind and with a single thought destroyed them all. The others of my kind did not approve of such interference in corporeal matters. And so I was exiled. My punishment was the unending protection of this world."

"Why pretend to be corporeal at all?"

"So that time to time I may walk among the people - know them as the good and kind souls they are. For thousands of years, I have come and gone to the villages, never staying too long to get attached to anyone. I am permitted to safeguard my people, but my people only. This is my punishment. This is what makes it punishment. If your people came here for my protection, the Others would stop me. Do you understand? I can never help you or Atlantis."

John laughed humourlessly. "You know I've studied up on the matters of the Ascended, well as much as my people have experience with you guys. I must say…those 'rules' of yours they…suck."

A reluctant grin came over her beautiful features. "That they do, for those of us who at least retain a sense of responsibility towards the…mess we left behind in the physical plane."

"Well, you may not be able to help…but I could come and visit if you don't mind…the guys upstairs can't deny you at least that basic personal liberty."

Her smile grew wider. "I'd like that."

* * *

><p><strong>West Wing, The White House, Washington DC, Terra<strong>

Newly elected President of the United States, Albert Gore Jr and Stan Greeves walked down the familiar and rather well decorated interior of the West Wing on the way to his new office. He had been here many times before to visit his former boss, but for obvious security reasons the Vice President and President weren't kept in close proximity to each other by the Secret Service. They were currently walking down the memorial corridor, which held the portraits and busts of past Presidents. Al Gore didn't spare them a glance, more intent on listening to his Press Secretary.

"The Nikkei dropped eight percent last night. The Yen continued it's free fall. Also, the President of Togo was deposed about six hours ago. He managed to get a plane to Nigeria. Now he's calling for American troops to help restore order."

"I'll tell him to speak to the African Union. It might be new, but with the South Africans as its teeth in diplomacy and military, the AU's got much more legitimacy in handling it."

"Yes, Mr. President. The _New York Times_ is about to launch an investigation on all the problems Florida had with its elections. I've got Teddy on it."

Al Gore shook his head. "Honestly, how hard could it possibly be to make a Voting machine that's simple to use? I find myself longing for days where we just write an X next to the picture of your preferred Presidential candidate on a folded piece of paper, that's it."

Stan nodded emphatically. "I agree, Mr President. Also, there's a storm in the Atlantic about to hit the coast of Maine. They're expecting gale force winds and twenty inches of snow. Emergency management teams are standing by, but we've scheduled a call to the governor for 10:00, so you can pledge our support."

They walked into the outer offices to the Oval Office. The secretaries rose immediately as he entered. "Good morning," Al nodded with a smile.

Stan paused at the last door, the famous 'not-so-hidden' north-east door. "The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs is waiting for you in your office."

Al Gore nodded and wondered for a moment why General Francis Maynard was here, he'd already received the Top Secret Briefing from him. It was then that he noticed that the Army Four Star was not alone, standing next to him was another military officer in formal dress…and if he wasn't mistaken he was from the Royal Air Force.

The President took a deep fortifying breath before striding into his new place of work.

He smiled at the tall Army General. "Francis!" They shook hands.

"Mr President," Maynard nodded. "This is Air Commodore Harry Potter of Her Majesty's Royal Air Force."

"Pleased to meet you, Mr President." Potter held out his hand for a shake as well.

"So am I, Commodore Potter." The President sent a questioning look to Maynard.

"The Commodore is here to assist me in bringing you up to speed on a program that's been running out of Cheyenne Mountain for the past seven years." The President gestured for them to sit on the couches on either side of the stitched Presidential Seal.

"Haven't I already had a Top Secret briefing? Or does the Commodore's presence indicate that we're talking about an International program?"

"Yes, Mr President. The program is multi-national; to be specific it involves over eighty countries." Maynard handed over a file folder marked 'Classified'.

Al's eyes widened at that number, whilst opening the folder. The first thing to catch his eye was a large symbol; a solid ring with a thick dot in its centre, in the background an unfinished triangle with a small circle above it. Underneath was written in English; 'Stargate Treaty Organization'.

_Stargate?_

"Mr. President, for the past seven years, the United States Air Force and other allied militaries has been sending teams to other planets by means of an alien device known as the Stargate."

It took a few moments for that statement to sink in and by the dead serious looks on the faces of the two men before him…

"The Nations of the world - this Stargate Treaty Organization - have been sending people to other planets."

"Yes, sir."

"For the last seven years."

"That's correct."

"By means of an alien device."

Maynard nodded. "Known as the Stargate."

Albert Arnold Gore Jr sat down behind the President's desk, his mind not knowing what to make of what was just told to him. Finally, "Assuming this isn't a very well acted joke…tell me everything."

* * *

><p><em>AN: With Kinsey pushing daisies and the NID rotting in the annals of history, he isn't there to give Hayes the Florida election and the Presidency. Meaning in my Universe, the Democrats win the White House again, hence Al Gore. In my mind he was the 'President Who Should Have Been' and I was facepalming for weeks after the 2000 election and Florida recount. As for him not knowing about the Stargate; plausible deniability. If the SG program caused a disaster, then Gore as VP could legitimately say 'I had no idea'. No political debate on my review page please. Oh, and I couldn't kill off Doc Frasier, as shown the AW armor saved Wells from the severe wound he got in OTL. _


	44. Chapter 44

_**Chapter 44**__ – __**The Die is Cast**_

**SGC, Terra**

Harry stood patiently waiting at the elevator doors to the twenty eight sublevel of the SGC with Sam, Daniel and Teal'C. It had been ten minutes since the gate guards had secretly phoned ahead that Jack was on his way, and five since he and SG1 had waited in the busy intersection of this level.

Finally the elevator opened to disgorge a few Airmen and Spec Ops troops before Jack finally disembarked, clutching a worn looking crossword puzzle that Sam had cut out of a newspaper. It was a 'bet' and actually her latest scheme to get Jack out of his 'intellectual' shell. It amazed Harry quite a bit that many people forgot that to make it as a qualified Air Force pilot, you had to have perseverance, good eye sight and be extremely smart – so when they wrote off Jack O'Neill as a 'low IQ lightweight' they were seriously deluding themselves. Sam was convinced that the Colonel just did it to make people underestimate him – which was quite true – and to Harry it was clear she also wanted Jack to drop the 'clueless act' with her.

Jack came to a stop and looked at them shrewdly. "How long have you been waiting there?"

Daniel tapped his watch meaningfully. "You said 'half an hour' an hour ago."

"General Hammond's waiting." Sam told her immediate superior who approached with a near smug look on his face, and handed her the apparently finished crossword.

Sam scanned the crossword. "The fate of our galaxy is in the balance and you've been sitting in your truck, finishing this?"

Jack held his hand out expectantly. "I believe it was double or nothing."

She held her hand up in reply. "Okay, 23 across, the atomic weight of boron. The answer is ten."

"Yes." Jack nodded expectantly.

"You wrote the word 'fat'."

Sam folded it up and handed it back to Jack who snatched it back with mock irritation on his face. "Your point?"

They followed the Colonel giving amused looks to each other all the way to the Briefing Room, where SG3 was already waiting for them.

Jack nodded as they all stood behind their seats. "Harper, Reynolds."

Colonel Reynolds gave a casual salute. "Jack."

Sam resumed her previous explanation patiently. "SG-3 spotted a Goa'uld reconnaissance drone while on the planet where they found the colonnade. Since that obviously means the Goa'uld were aware of its existence, SG's 3 and 5 will be providing back-up. If General Hammond approves the mission."

Jack was rather distracted today it seemed. "What mission?"

General Hammond entered the room from his adjoining office. "Good morning, everyone." He pointedly looked at Jack "Nice of you to join us."

"Good morning, Sir."

As soon as Hammond took his seat, everyone followed suit. Harry opened his own briefing folder and skimmed it with a worried frown.

"I've read Doctor Jackson's report on his translation. Given what happened the last time you encountered something like this, I'm surprised you're so willing to take on this mission."

Jack frowned. "So am I, Sir."

Daniel coughed. "Jack."

"Daniel?"

"This is the greatest repository of knowledge in the known universe. We can't let it fall into the hands of Anubis."

"Well, there's that."

Harry also chimed in with another compelling reason. "There's also the fact that if Anubis gets it, he'd derive the location of Atlantis. If he sends a fleet it's inevitable that he and the Wraith will clash, possibly exposing the fact that our Galaxy has a very large human population, and it will send them clambering to develop better Hyperdrives to get here."

Jack nodded with a grin. "And that."

"From the mission file I've read, it's one of those things that whips up from the wall, grabs your head and rearranges your brain, right?" Reynolds asked for clarification.

Harry shook his head. "Sort of. Using the Repository in an untrained manner like Jack did is not recommended. He wasn't controlling it properly and it just blasted all its contents into his mind, and that drained all its power in the process. Think of it like a Q machine. You ask a question and it downloads only what's relevant to answer it."

"General, we're suggesting we extract it," Daniel proposed. "Harry can use it, and perhaps he can train others to do the same."

"It's certainly possible, General. Atlantis's database is essentially the same thing, only the Repositories are much more 'user-friendly', so to speak. Now with a database on Earth it means that if, God forbid, Atlantis should be lost we'll not lose our access to all that knowledge. A backup if you will."

"I can definitely see the value in that," Hammond agreed. "Recent intel suggests that Anubis has become a serious threat to dominate the rest of the Goa'uld in a very short time. We can't afford a single all powerful Goa'uld – we need to knock Anubis out of the game, once and for all, and this Repository might just have what we need to do that. You have a go. And be careful people."

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**P3X-439**

SG1 emerged from the event horizon and made way for the eight Swords under the control of SG3 and 5 to emerge. The Swords were also now fitted for an Anti-Air capability; with a modified M32 40mm Launcher that fired an ingenius round called Bloodhound, which would launch itself into the air initially using standard solid propellant, after which it would unfold into a small guided missile. There was very little room left for a warhead, but when that explosive was a properly scaled naquadah potassium reaction, it would pretty much take out a Death Glider with a single hit and even an Al'kesh if a group of Swords worked together. In addition, if paired with a MALP Mk2, it could act as a subspace relay for the Swords, so that even if the Gate shut down, they would continue to operate via the powerful subspace communication array in Tranquility Base on Luna.

Harry felt rather _safe _among the eight UGCVs that trundled along with them, it was rather strange.

Jack turned to the Sword which was marked with the name of the SG3s commander. "Reynolds, set up a defense perimeter as you see fit. Hold the gate 'till we get back. SG5 you're with us."

The Sword in question replied _'You got it!_' from its small internal speaker.

When they were out of 'earshot' or rather 'microphone-shot' Jack leaned over to Harry. "That felt damn weird, ordering a robot about."

"Technically, you're not ordering the robot."

"I know; it just felt weird, almost wrong somehow."

The moved along the crisp green grass that surrounded the area of the Stargate, it was also rather hilly, but thankfully their destination was already within view. A large ruined statue, almost fifteen meters high. It should have been larger, but the massive seated figure had lost its head to the either the erosion of time or a direct hit from an energy weapon, probably both.

The Swords deployed in a perimeter around it as Harry and Daniel walked around the statue to view it from all angles whilst the rest of SG1 found a seat in the large shadow that it cast.

He and Daniel then moved closer, and spotted an open hallway of sorts formed into the base of the statue, which was covered in to the brim in Alteran inscriptions.

Harry headed over to one section of writing behind a column. "This planet was one of the Alteran's core worlds in this part of the Galaxy. It makes sense for a Repository to be here then."

"Yeah," nodded Daniel absently, reading the inscriptions on another column intently. "Hmmm, this also used to be a statue of a great leader of theirs…name's worn off."

Harry moved to the next column in the row. "This just talks of this specific planet's history within the old Alteran domain."

Daniel skipped past to the next. "Okay, this is promising…it says, 'To any of our own who may come, find the legacy within."

Harry laughed. "Oh, that's typical Alteran double-speak. The knowledge of the Universe is both a journey within you – which leads to ascension and an external one of the material realm."

"Any progress, gentlemen?" Jack appeared with Sam and Teal'C following behind.

"Quite a lot actually."

Daniel looked confused. "Huh, we have?"

"I said that it was double-speak, I've only covered what it meant from one point of view," Harry explained.

Jack smiled wryly. "We could have Goa'uld on our collective asses any minute now."

"I know Jack, I was going to say that from a second, more literal point of view…the legacy," Harry reached over to the column and pushed his hand against the inscription.

Sam, who had been scanning the other side of the wall, let out a startled exclamation when the organo-metallic shape of a dormant Repository suddenly phased into existence right in front of her. She retreated hastily to press her back against the column, well out of reach of the machine. Jack and Daniel rather comically imitated her.

"Now we just have to figure out how to get it out of the wall."

Harry moved carefully closer, focusing his thoughts clearly. The device had already linked to him via its integrated artificial telepathy. "I've got that part covered." Whereas before the Repository would latch onto someone who was eagerly seeking the knowledge and download everything…now Harry was sending it clear instructions on what to do.

The Repository shrunk, contracting further and further, until it was no more than a ten centimeter perfectly uniform cube, which was now sitting in the camouflaged alcove it had laid dormant in. Harry picked it up carefully. "You've seen a universe in a bottle. Here's a universe of knowledge in a cube."

Jack squinted oddly at the thing. "It's so…small."

"The Universe rarely conforms to what we expect of it, Jack."

"_SG1, we have_ _Gliders incoming!"_

Everyone brought their PR8s to bear in reflex and crouched behind the columns. Harry carefully secured the Repository cube in his backpack, and joined SG1 behind cover as the whine of Death Gliders speeding through the atmosphere reached their ears.

A flight of five Gliders screamed in from the east, strafing the ground with plasma fire that snaked towards their position. Harry willed his chromesuit to materialize the standard hand held M32 or 'Six-pack attack' as it was called amongst STO troops, due to its large six shot drum ammo feed.

Jack and the others put in sound cancellation earplugs before he screamed. "SG5 take those suckers out!"

The four Sword UVs had also reversed into cover, but now advanced slightly to make sure their integrated M32s had clearance. Muted deep thumps and a slight whiff of smoke from the thick barrels heralded the Bloodhound rounds shooting four hundred meters in the air, whilst deploying their control surfaces before a micro-graviton pulse engine boosted them to seek their programmed targets.

Five bright flashes forced them to look away as all five Gliders were destroyed and reduced to nothing more than fiery fragments that rained down on the area.

"We got what we came for! Retreat! Harry cover our tracks!"

He nodded and rushed over to the alcove, placed a large slab of C4, stabbed in a detonator and sped to join the sprint back to the gate. The SG5 Sword unit fired more Bloodhounds into the air, as they trundled alongside.

This time the four smart devices streaked through the air at over two thousand feet per second to concentrate on an approaching Al'kesh. The resulting explosion was deafening, and made the team doubly grateful for the sound dampening earplugs.

Harry added another explosion when he triggered his C4, which would hopefully convince Anubis that they had destroyed the Repository rather than risking it falling into the Goa'uld's 'hands'.

By the time they reached the Stargate, the SG3 Swords also sent more Bloodhounds into the air. The rounds had in simulations not been detectable by the crude sensors on a Death Glider, being generally too small. As such, the Gliders still in the air were flying in panicky evasive maneuvers.

Harry didn't even bother with the DHD and reached out to mentally interface with the Stargate. The event horizon just fizzled into existence with no unstable vortex at all, forming the wormhole to Earth. Jack tapped on his GDO and bodily grabbed Harry, who was too surprised to do anything to protest and was pushed through.

Harry stumbled out onto the ramp, barely keeping his M32 in hand whilst retaining his balance. "Damnit Jack!" He paused to collect himself, ripping out the earplugs, before heading down the ramp to an alarmed General Hammond.

"What happened?"

"I've got the Repository, General, but Jack saw fit to toss me through with it."

"He did the right thing, Commodore."

"I know."

Sam stumbled through next, looking a quite dusty, followed shortly by Daniel.

Harry stopped her. "Where are they?"

She shook her head ruefully in reply. "They were rather eager to use their own M32s."

Finally, Jack and Teal'C, looking even more sweaty and dusty rushed through.

"Honestly, we have the Swords for a damn reason, you know?" Harry groused.

Jack's grin was decidedly satisfied. "Couldn't resist firing off a few of these babies."

The MALP came through next, followed by SG5's Swords who were reversed, as they trundled down the ramp. SG3s appeared, and were firing their PR8s on full auto into the wormhole. Reynold's unit emerged last.

"Defenses up!"

Shield and Iris covered the mouth of the Stargate. There were six man sized flares against it before the wormhole shut down.

Jack's grin turned shark-like. "Ouch."

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**Doranda, Pegasus Galaxy**

Emerging from the orbital Space Gate, Puddle Jumper 5 extended its nacelles and the instant it had viable thrust, rolled and burst onto a new course to take it into a low orbit of the planet below. John Sheppard was finding it strange being in the seat directly behind the pilot, and he wished he could take the controls, but it was currently well in hand. Not by Rodney, who still couldn't fly in a straight line, or Ford, who was many things, but not a stick jockey, or even Teyla…who obviously couldn't pilot the ship as it wouldn't work for her.

No, sitting at the controls, was the former 'Chief Engineer' of the Lantean warship _Aurora_. His medium-length hair was the colour of obsidian, and he wore it in a precise style. His skin was still cream-colored due to the lack of exposure to the sun, despite his fellow Lanteans practically sunbathing every day to get rid of the complexion that was a leftover from the Cloning cycle. He had hollow cheeks and his dark eyes were intent and searing in their intensity as he piloted the Jumper.

The Lantean known as Ustheus turned his gaze to Rodney, who was seated next to him at the co-pilot station. "Are you detecting any life on the planet?"

"Nothing. Life signs are negative."

Ustheus' jaw clenched. "I guess it was too much to hope that any Dorandans survived. They were one of the finest examples of an enlightened human race in the Pegasus Galaxy, and their finest minds had worked with us on a number of occasions."

"Wraith probably wiped them out for that reason," Ford shook his head grimly.

"Yes, but it seems my people and Dorandans did considerable damage before the end," Ustheus pointed ahead.

John looked through the forward viewport and whistled in appreciation. The Jumper was now flying through a truly massive debris field, composed of mostly unrecognisable hull fragments, ranging in size from fist sized slivers of metal to house sized sections, then finally…

"That _was_ a hive ship," Teyla pointed out the easily distinguished organic metal that the Wraith used. An entire forward section of what had been part of a Hive ship had seemingly been blasted off and was floating and tumbling, with its orbit slowly but surely decaying.

"Something put a lot of holes in it alright."

"That's hopefully good news," Ustheus put the Jumper on an atmospheric entry vector.

"Whoa," objected Rodney. "Clearly this Secret Project of yours is some sort of weapon…what if it attacks us?"

"Dr McKay, the Arcturus Project was not a weapon system per se. It was a new form of power generation, and if it was going to attack us, it would've done so the moment we exited the Space Gate."

The Jumper was now among thick clouds, which virtually covered the entire surface of the planet. When it finally emerged below it, they were greeted with a scene of pure devastation; there had been a city below, and it was practically destroyed down to the foundations…everything was crumbled and dust. The only signs that remained of it were the artificial radial lines of fairly wide roads.

Rodney frowned into his station, his mind reading and interpreting data from the sensors. "I'm picking up faint energy readings coming from ahead…ten degrees starboard."

Ustheus turned the small scout craft and the horizon shifted, and immediately a few kilometres distant there rose a completely intact and near pristine building out of the devastation. It had the classic merging of angular geometries and rounded edges that were characteristic of Lantean architecture. Prominent on top of the twenty meter tall building was a rounded and lethal looking energy cannon with multiple emitter barrels, aiming upward into the sky.

"Very nice," Rodney commented with appreciation at the sight of the weapon.

"Thank you, but I can't take credit for it, Dr McKay. Arcturus' was Janus' idea." The Lantean brought the Jumper into a smooth turn, around the building, bringing it in for a landing on top of a round platform jutting out of the side.

"Time Drives, Subspace Destabilizers," Rodney listed incredulously. "Is there anything he didn't invent?"

"Janus was a singularly brilliant individual, if somewhat of a…there's this wonderful expression I read in your literature…a loose cannon, that describes him rather perfectly. He ignored Council edicts time and again to cease research into all the areas of knowledge we had long ago decided not pursue, due to their dangers. The only reason he wasn't thrown into the Brig was that the Council couldn't afford to give up the chance that one of his insane experiments might result in the end of the Wraith. His mind was focused completely on solving the Wraith problem once and for all, but no matter what plan he devised…there was always some unforeseen problem that ended everything in failure."

John commented wryly, "We call that Murphy's Law."

Ustheus frowned. "Murphy?"

Rodney explained. "It's just the reflection of a mathematical idea that, given a sufficiently long time, an event which is possible will almost surely take place, usually the worst case scenario."

"I see," he nodded in understanding, "let's see if we can't possibly break this…law then."

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Ustheus led the way through the darkened building that lit up for them as they passed and they emerged into what had to be some form of large central control room. The spacious room had numerous dust covered consoles littering it, including the distinct floating database holograph screen that lit up automatically. Its design practically mirrored those found on Atlantis.

The fully lit room with the eerie near-blue lighting that Lanteans seemed to favour, revealed two skeletal human-looking bodies, lying off to the side against a wall.

John crouched near them, looking over the decomposed near-petrified flesh. "I got two bodies here. Can't tell if they were fed on by the Wraith."

"I got three more over here." Ford declared from a small dead-end corridor he had found that led off from the control room. "I think they were Lanteans, the clothes look similar to what you guys like to wear around the city."

"We will come back for them," Ustheus looked sadly at the bodies, then headed over to the main database console and began working.

"Okay, is this why there's practically nothing in the Atlantis database on this Project?" John sighed in irritation.

"Partially, like all of Janus' work, it was kept secret from the general Lantean population. The Council feared the public outcry against the avenues of science they were allowing him to explore. Only they and the top military leaders and ship captains like Herodotus were briefed on this. There's also the small matter that this method of power generation is extremely dangerous and…delicate."

"Hang on a second," Ford frowned, "I thought ZPMs were like the ultimate power source, why were you guys looking for another form?"

"Potentia's are time-consuming to create and as you know they have limited life-span for generating power. Especially once you engage a power hungry system. They reach maximum entropy and they become useless," Ustheus explained. "The Council also wanted the benefits of Potentia power on our warships without the risk that they could be captured and used by the Wraith. The Potentia could be plugged out and carried too easily, if it was an integrated system on the other hand, the crew could make sure to sabotage or destroy the technology, and the Wraith had no hope in the Universe of reverse engineering it."

"So how does this improve on that?"

"This," Ustheus gestured vaguely to the room around them, "makes a ZPM look like your alkaline batteries in comparison. Project Arcturus attempts to extract vacuum energy from our _own_ space-time, making it potentially as powerful as the scope of the universe itself."

Rodney turned to Ustheus. "It strikes me as something you would have tried first, even before ZPMs."

"And we did," the Lantean confirmed. "Extracting vacuum energy from our own space-time as opposed to an artificial universe in a bottle is much more complicated."

Rodney snorted at that apparent understatement. "Well, because we actually have to _live _in our own universe, it would present whole range of problems."

"Quite," agreed Ustheus, reading intently what was being displayed on the holoscreen, "and it seems they actually did carry out a test."

"Really?" Rodney's eyebrows shot to the roof, "then why is this planet in ruins?"

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**Commander's Office, Atlantis**

"The logs indicate there was a major malfunction." Ustheus reported sombrely to General Theron and Captain Herodotus. "The Arcturus scientists were forced to shut everything down, including the weapon. Afterwards, the Wraith sent more ships despite their heavy losses, the Dorandans were slaughtered."

Theron nodded in understanding. "So if the malfunction hadn't occurred, the planet could have been saved?"

"Possibly, the scientists running Arcturus were rushed into testing before they had perfected a means of effectively controlling the power output. In addition, they ran into the problem that finally caused them to stop working on it altogether."

"And that is?" Herodotus asked intently. _Aurora_ had shipped out on its mission to the Wraith shipyard before this had happened; he had dearly hoped in the past that Arcturus, combined with the Wraith Hyperspace Jammer would be the death knell of the accursed race.

"Exotic particle generation," Ustheus said the word as if it was something foul in his mouth. "The very act of trying to contain vacuum energy from our own space-time creates an environment where the laws of physics cease to apply. As power output increases, new and exotic particles are continuously created and destroyed inside the Reactor containment chamber, interacting with each other and with the field itself. Eventually particles are created that cannot be predicted in this space-time, and they breach the containment field as hard radiation."

"That's what killed the five Lanteans we found," John pointed out. "And while the Wraith did attack the planet and damaged it severely, it turns out they weren't responsible for levelling it to the ground. It was Arcturus itself that did that."

Herodotus was astounded. "What?"

Ustheus sighed deeply at yet another massive loss of life that could be attributed to his people's failings. "Arcturus began to overload after it had begun operation and firing on the Wraith fleet. They had to run the Gluon weapon on continuous fire as a release valve to prevent catastrophic containment failure. The scientists barely managed to shut it down, and they lost their lives in the process, but not before it destroyed everything else on Doranda. It's the reason why the building is the only thing left standing."

"So it proved a doom instead of salvation," Herodotus' shoulders visibly sagged.

Rodney raised a casual hand. "Uhm, I've actually got an idea…"

"You think you can make it work," Theron narrowed her eyes sceptically.

"Yes," the Canadian scientist shrugged simply. "I'll be the first to admit, you Lanteans are brilliant geniuses, but you don't think like we do."

"That's readily apparent," Ustheus said wryly.

"You've got ZPMs on the one hand, an artificial region of subspace time in a bottle," Rodney held up his left hand. "And an Arcturus Reactor in the other," he held up his right, "that creates dangerous exotic particles during its operation." He put his hands together, figuratively combining them. "You take an Arcturus Reactor run it normally, and create a channel or unidirectional bridge from which to siphon off the exotic particles and push it into a clean ZPM for storage; much like you would store nuclear reactor waste."

"The space-time in a ZPM is limited, it would eventually reach maximum containment, and such a ZPM would be extremely dangerous…" Ustheus was completely aghast at the idea. "If it ever destabilized…you could conceivably destroy an entire star system with it."

"Aha, not necessarily, the EP filled ZPM is highly charged and not subject to entropy. If it could then be utilized as a ZPM normally is, only this time to power the Arcturus containment field itself…"

The room as a whole considered the idea in thoughtful stunned silence.

"The idea has merit, Dr McKay, I'll give you that," Ustheus' eyes were contemplative as he did the complex theoretical math in his head. "I can think of nothing that would make it impossible to do. The creation of the connection between Reactor and Potentia, not to mention safely using such a charged Potentia will required extensive research and testing."

"Make it happen, Ustheus," Herodotus stated firmly. "We cannot let the death of the Dorandans be in vain."

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**Earth, Luna 1 Orbit, Milky Way Galaxy**

The cloaked Puddle Jumper was steady on its course towards the far side of the moon. At its controls Harry felt satisfied as to its performance thus far. He had finally gotten around to repairing the Jumper that had been damaged at the Battle of Visuban. He had also taken the opportunity to improve the capabilities of the Jumper.

Whereas before it would only fire Alteran Drones from the drive nacelles, it now also featured two of the new fighter sized versions of the PR8s, which gave it a self-defense ability that was not ammo dependant. He had also installed a supplemental naquadah power source that powered a Tollan Phase Shift system in conjunction with the Cloak to turn the Jumper completely intangible to the normal Universe. Any weapon fired at the ship would simply shoot through as if it wasn't there. There were some basic improvements to the structure too, that gave its front a more aerodynamic aspect and much bigger and wider 'window' to give the pilot a better view of the world around him. Even though, if a pilot fully submerged himself into the cyberspace of the craft he could 'see' in all directions, if that mental interface system went offline…well the Mark 1 Eyeball was a never fail backup.

"Are we there yet?"

Harry shook his head. "Jack, the ship isn't going anywhere."

"I know," the Colonel replied pointedly, "it's just that this is not something one sees every day."

"We're going to be seeing more of the same in the foreseeable future."

The Jumper slipped behind the moon relative to Earth and Tranquility Base came into view. Their eyes were not on focused on that, however. Hovering in orbit two hundred kilometers above the surface of the moon, in a neat formation was a total of twenty one starships. Ten of them were Asgard _O'Neill_ Class Battlecruisers. The Alteran Dreadnought and Cruiser, _Achilles_ and _Artemis_, brought it up to twelve. Then there were five Orbanian Cruisers, which were roughly equivalent in performance to the three Terran Destroyers, _Prometheus, Deadalus _and _Apollo_ hovering next to them, both in size, firepower, speed and shield generation capacity, whilst lacking any fighter carrier capacities.

But the ship that really stole the show was the brand new Terran Cruiser; the _TSS Agaron_.

"Sweet!" Jack said appreciably.

"Say hello to the CA-304," Sam commented from the rear seat of the cockpit cabin.

"Eight hundred and ninety meters of pure destructive fury, this is what will beat the Goa'uld and have the Wraith for desert," Harry gestured to the steadily growing sleek ship at the heart of the fleet formation. Visually, it resembled the basic shape of its DC-303 cousin, only upscaled slightly more than double. It also did away with the dorsal flight deck and only had a much smaller ventral deck for carrying F302s. It made up for this though.

The ship carried none of the old Particle Beam Cannons; all energy weapon mounts now sported the infinitely more potent Neutron Cannons. The Phalanx Interceptor Grid was even more densely weaved over the hull, with Rail Guns as backups and anti-fighter point defense. Its missile tubes were like the 303, and since the ship was bigger…it had consequently a lot more missiles it could fling at the enemy at one time.

And if that wasn't already impressive enough, then there was the weapon that would make the CA304 the potential 'war winner', and was the main reason for the ship having much less fighter carrying capacity.

"Now those are what I'm talking about," Jack enthused with a pumping fist of victory. There were twenty two double barreled fully traversable turrets running the entire dorsal length of the _Agaron_, and twenty along the ventral. Each barrel was twenty five meters in length, with a bore of a meter and lining the interior at five meter intervals was gravitic engine coils not that far removed from a Death Glider engine. Also added to this recipe was Interial Dampeners – which reduced the relative mass of what was inside the cannon to zero.

This was the Galileo Mass Accelerator or GMA.

Theoretically, it could shoot a nineteen thousand two hundred ton projectile of solid tungsten, (which was what a cubic meter of tungsten weighed) and propel it at a target. Not that the SGC would ever consider using such a valuable metal in an inefficient manner as that. The GMA could fire anything that was put in its tubes, as long as it was under a certain mass threshold, at a staggering two thousand five hundred kilometers a second.

And that was nothing, for when the ship accelerated to its maximum sublight speed and fired at a target that was relatively stationary, such as a planet, or a ship, that the projectiles would have a kinetic impact velocity of half the speed of light. This equated to over eleven gigatons of destructive force. It could take a shaped projectile of iron and essentially crack a planet. The ammunition it could fire were varied and wide ranging.

"Will she last any longer in a firefight than the Prometheus Class?" Jack wondered.

"Considerably, sir," Sam replied emphatically. "She's powered by two Mark 4 Liquid Naquadah - Lithium Fusion Reactors; they output triple the power of the previous Mark 3. She can take a beating that would utterly destroy a DC and give it back threefold."

Harry willed the Jumper onto a new course that would take it directly to the _Achilles_.

"It's too bad we won't be going on the _Agaron_," Jack lamented.

"You just want to be the first to fire the 'big honkin space guns', Jack," Daniel cheekily commented. "And I dare you to deny you wouldn't use those exact words when you give the order."

Jack gave a mock annoyed glare to Daniel. "I still can't believe the STO gave the _Agaron_ to Colonel Chekov. This is supposed to be the class that will liberate the Galaxy, and we give the first one off the production line to a Russian."

"Jack...all four DC ships have American COs, the STO rightly felt that the next ship needed a Captain from another country," Harry explained.

"Why not a Brit then..."

Any furtherance of Jack's argument was stopped when the Jumper smoothly entered the _Achilles_' Small Craft Bay and landed on a designated parking spot. Harry mentally linked with the ship and he and SG1 were instantly beamed onto the Bridge via the internal transporters.

Harry took a seat on the Control Chair and gestured for the four members of SG1 to take their own seats. These were also Control Chairs, but were isolated to a specific system. While Harry could essentially manage the ship on his own, the old adage of two heads was better than one, or in this case, five heads, held true.

He could focus exclusively on flying the ship in battle, whilst Jack and Teal'C handled the various weapon systems, and Sam managed power distribution. Daniel would keep his mind on the sensors for the most part and could also use the Transporter system offensively if the situation called for it, but would mostly just be an observer.

Harry initiated a com line with the Asgard vessel that held the Battle Group Commander.

"_Achilles_ to _Sigurd_, we are aboard and all systems are optimal."

A hologram screen appeared on the Omniview Bridge, "_Understood, Achilles_," Thor replied. "_The fleet is nearing final readiness for departure; we are just awaiting word from two Orbanian ships."_ Harry could hear the subtle note of irritation in the Asgard Supreme Commander's voice.

"Well, they better get their asses moving, we can't exactly spring a surprise attack if the surprisees have already moved on," Jack groused.

Thor tilted his head and his black eyes flared open slightly. "_I shall encourage them then to get their 'asses' into their ships_."

"Beam them there if you have to. We're not gonna screw the pooch on this one, just cos some Orbanian forgot to go to the toilet."

Thor nodded and the holoscreen vanished as the com line was closed.

They spent the next nineteen minutes mentally interfaced with the systems of the Achilles, doing last minute checks and familiarization exercises, when finally the word came through to all twenty one ships.

Battle Group One was ready.

All ships broke orbit smoothly and arranged themselves in an X formation, cruising forward one tenth of light speed. _Agaron_ was the first to enter Hyperspace, mostly since it was the newest ship; if something went wrong the other twenty ships were there to immediately assist.

Nothing went wrong though, and the rest of the battle group sent themselves hurtling into Hyperspace.

The image of subspace pulsed around Harry and SG1, as he reflected on the battle that was ahead of them. It would not be easy, and it was a certainty that there wouldn't be twenty one ships returning to Tranquility Base, but there was nothing more to be done. They had cast their die; the rest would be in the hands of Fate and the Creator.

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End file.
